Generation Z voters — some eligible to vote in their first presidential election — are focused on many of the same issues resonating with veteran voters: The economy. The border. Abortion rights. Climate change.

As the nation settles in for a 2024 rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, which candidate best reaches young voters could play a pivotal role in the outcome in November.

The age of both candidates was very much on the minds of the group of young potential voters who spoke to CNHI reporters in recent weeks as part of the ongoing 2024 election project, Pulse of the Voters. Gen Z comprises those born between 1997 and 2012. The oldest will be 27 on Election Day.

Biden will turn 82 two weeks after the November general election. Trump will turn 78 this summer. They will be the two oldest candidates to run for president, breaking their own record set four years ago.

Lucas Cross, 18, a high school student in Mineral Wells Texas, voted for the first time on Super Tuesday. He voted for Nikki Haley in the GOP primary, citing the age of Biden and Trump.

“I like my grandma very much, but I don’t want her running my country,” he said.

Biden won 61% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 in 2020, according to the Associated Press VoteCast, making young voters a critical part of his coalition. His approval ratings within that demographic now stand at 29%, according to a recent AP-NORC poll. Trump continues to close the gap; recent polls show that he trails Biden by four points in this critical demographic.

“For the most part, young people are concerned about the same things that everyone else is, namely, the economy, prices, and economic security,” said Chris Ellis, Bucknell professor of political science. “The specific nature of the concerns might be different than those of older voters — they’re concerned about how they are going to afford their first home, or whether they will have the job security that their parents did, and things like that. But these concerns trump all others for the youth voters that are up for grabs in the election.”

Some other young voters, like the educated, engaged ones you find on college campuses, have other priorities, Ellis said.

They are “focusing more on social issues — things like abortion, transgender rights, or Israel/Palestine,” he said. “These things are all more important to young voters than they are for others. But undecided youth voters are going to move in the same direction, and for mostly the same reasons, as other undecided voters.”

To gauge the mood of younger voters, CNHI journalists fanned out across nearly two dozen Midwest, Southwest, Southeast and Northeast states to talk with voters for the latest installment of the “Pulse of the Voters” series, which began during the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

Age and rematch

The rematch comes with mixed feelings for young voters across the nation.

Alexis Armstrong, a Democrat from Ohio who now lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, said she plans on voting for Biden “not excitedly or enthusiastically, but it’s the reality of the situation we are in.”

“I can’t say I’m not a little disappointed in how the primaries turned out,” the 23-year-old Holy Cross political science graduate said. “There was an overall understanding that after 2020 we were entering a different administration, a different sort of American life, and now we are entering a rematch. We are now stuck within the situation we are in now, which is a lack of choice, even a lack of choice among those two parties.”

Amelia Williams, a 19-year-old from Cooperstown, New York, is majoring in political science at SUNY Oneonta with a minor in women’s studies. She said she’s been involved with politics since age 16 and said she is eager to vote in this election.

But she admitted, “My personal opinion is that we’re choosing between two bad apples,” the Jamaican native said. One is facing 19 criminal counts and one for being the same age as my grandfather.”

“There is a big mix of emotions surrounding the upcoming election — ranging from frustration and anger to willful ignorance to determination to change the system,” said 21-year-old Bridget Bowser, a student at Susquehanna University in central Pennsylvania who lives in West Chester. “Many young people cannot live with themselves if they vote for someone who makes the decisions Biden has, but voting for Trump would entail voting for a person with even less regard for human lives.”

A recently engaged senior at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, Daniel Hostetter is less than excited about the rematch.

“It would take a lot for me to vote for either of these men. We have two deeply, deeply flawed candidates in very different ways,” he said.

While issues will always be centerstage in a presidential election, the age of the two candidates also worries young voters.

Democrat Emma Hansen, 21, a student at Roger Williams University from Salem, New Hampshire, would have preferred younger candidates.

“I would like someone who is closer to my age and can resonate with the struggles young people are facing,” Hansen said. “While I do feel Biden is in tune, I wish he represented young people more.”

Matthew Moore, a 2023 University of Pittsburgh graduate has campaigned for Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and President Biden. Age doesn’t bother him as much.

“I think that (Biden’s) age and wisdom have funnily enough proved to be effective on all the issues my generation cares about — from passing the biggest bill to address climate change in American history to the first laws coupling mental health care and gun control in decades, he’s delivered,” Moore, a research analyst in a Washington, D.C., political advertising firm. “I don’t have any qualms about his age because he has shown he can listen to us and deliver for us time and again.”

Tanner Bowman, 24, a Marlow, Oklahoma Republican, doesn’t necessarily think a younger person would make a good candidate. He’s concerned with the individual’s values.

“Right now, I’m pretty disappointed in how everything is going,” Bowman said.

Other issues

The state of the economy matters. Young voters are looking at a limited housing market and the impact of student debt. Other top issues for young voters are reproductive rights and the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Valerie McDonnell is already trying to do something. The 19-year-old Republican is the youngest state representative in New Hampshire.

“We seem to agree the economy is driving the issue,” McDonnell, of Salem, New Hampshire said. “It’s a little bit difficult for people older than myself purchasing homes or even myself when I want to purchase a car or go to school. I don’t think anyone can deny the fact that the inflation during the past administration has been through the roof.”

Quentin Postell, 25, a student from Dalton, Georgia, said women’s rights issues are a top agenda item for him after the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022, which eliminated what had been the constitutional right to an abortion. Postell, who is biracial, likened the court decision to perhaps stripping other established freedoms such as biracial marriage.

“It’s crazy,” he said, admitting he won’t vote for Trump but isn’t leaning toward Biden either. “That was literally set in stone years ago, why are we messing with it?”

For Shawna Hendricks, a health sciences major at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, health care, abortion and gun violence rank as her top three issues.

“We need to take stronger steps because it’s so easy to go get a gun,” Hendricks said. “There are not many restrictions, which is why it’s so easy for someone to pull out a gun and kill you for the smallest reasons.”

Ethan Mollenauer, a 21-year-old senior at Georgia College & State University, said the conflict in Israel is his top issue. Mollenauer, a multimedia journalism major from Alpharetta said, “It’s a shame that we’ve been putting money into that and elongating it. A lot of our representatives have refused to say the words, ‘cease-fire.’ I think putting an end to that as soon as possible is one of my biggest priorities at the moment just because it’s such a ridiculous loss of life for no real reason, the way I see it. The way Biden is treating it right now, he just continues to let it go. I find that to be kind of disgusting.”

Climate change and women’s rights are at the top of Mallory Gentry’s mind, 18, a high school senior in Pendleton, Indiana, who plans to attend Kalamazoo College in the fall to study chemistry.

“I’ve been looking into the environment and making sure that a candidate will want to help make our climate better for future generations,” she said. “I think it will be hard to make a decision. It’s kind of hard to find the good things in the candidates that you want to see because they’re all attacking each other.”

CNHI reporters from Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, and Minnesota contributed to this story.