While I like the analysis, I unfortunately have to point out that 18-45 is a really wide age range - that includes middle aged dads and radicalized 20 year olds in their first year of college
That is a fair point for some of the statements, although there are also charts that break the 20 to 45 demographic in half and report separate results.
Right, this is a sample size thing. The charts that break out under 45 into further buckets are based on aggregated polling data (i.e., combining multiple surveys that asked the same question to dial up the sample size to a usable level).
1.) The most likely reality is 20-year old men in 2026 are slightly less 'woke' than 20 year olds in 2021 but still far more 'woke' than 20 year olds in 2006 or 2001. But at the same time, young women are just getting woker.
2.) A chunk of the loudest most seemingly right-wing men on places like Twitch, Youtube comments, Twitter, whatever are literally teenage boys who are all dumb, full of testosterone, and saying dumb things they either really don't believe or will largely stop believing the moment they get a girlfriend or go off to college and regularly interact with women on a semi-regular basis in-person.
I say all this as a former teenage boy who while I was always a mild-mannered political dork saw a lot of my fellow teenage boys calm down in a variety of ways and this was in the early 2000s, let alone today.
Really appreciate both of those points. My intuition is also that most teenage boys saying misogynistic things online in 2026 wouldn't actually like living in a truly patriarchal society very much, and have no real interest in the subordination of women. Which is just to say that the prevalence of sexist or anti-feminist discourse, however concerning (!), should not be mistaken for deeply held ideology.
Interesting that the percentage of "liberal" and "moderate" are relatively static, "very conservative" sees modest growth, (at least after 30) but "very liberal" shrinks and conservative grows with age.
I wonder how much of this is generational (ie. boomers are more conservative than younger men) or how much has to do with age, i.e. young people tend to be less conservative than older people.
I personally have seen myself go from hard left to a more moderate liberal in my journey from teenager to middle-aged. A lot of my hard left politics were based on naiveté about how things work and not spending enough time outside my own liberal bubble.
I do resonate with your experience though that when I was fresh out of college, I was definitely a lot more reflexively, liberal or left-wing on issues then I am now. Although I would attribute that to feeling like the left has simply failed to change minds or achieve meaningful outcomes and outcomes really matter to me and so if moderation achieves outcomes then that's what I care about. But I also grew up in a very conservative household and my arc has been one of being Fox News pilled to anti-trump to left-wing to left of center.
There has been some research that shows this is less true than we think. For instance, for boomers specifically, those who participated in Vietnam War protests were more likely to remain liberal into their '60s and '70s as opposed to those who didn't. Although this could be viewed as just young people who supported the Vietnam War were probably already conservative or from a conservative background, whereas young people who were protesting the Vietnam War were probably liberal to begin with. I would suspect the conservatism of older people is more to do with their life experience or lack thereof rather than they got more conservative as they got older. Because some of the most anti-trump people I know are in their '70s and were former Republicans but they have specific experiences that make them more sympathetic to cosmopolitanism shall we say.
Glad you asked! Younger men in the February sample are too few in number to break out separately without risking that their views — which skew somewhat more liberal than their national demographic profile — distort the broader findings. So I combined Gen Z and Millennial respondents in all my full-sample analyses of our Feb data! BUT with the ideology/ conservative identification question at the top I was able to aggregate across multiple months of polling, giving me a much larger N. And when I limited my Feb sample to just conservative men, the ideological bias concern didn't apply, so more granular age breakdowns were possible. Hope that makes sense.
While I like the analysis, I unfortunately have to point out that 18-45 is a really wide age range - that includes middle aged dads and radicalized 20 year olds in their first year of college
As a man over 50, that's basically the age range I refer to as "millennials" :)
Harumph!
That is a fair point for some of the statements, although there are also charts that break the 20 to 45 demographic in half and report separate results.
Right, this is a sample size thing. The charts that break out under 45 into further buckets are based on aggregated polling data (i.e., combining multiple surveys that asked the same question to dial up the sample size to a usable level).
I think what's broadly going on is two things -
1.) The most likely reality is 20-year old men in 2026 are slightly less 'woke' than 20 year olds in 2021 but still far more 'woke' than 20 year olds in 2006 or 2001. But at the same time, young women are just getting woker.
2.) A chunk of the loudest most seemingly right-wing men on places like Twitch, Youtube comments, Twitter, whatever are literally teenage boys who are all dumb, full of testosterone, and saying dumb things they either really don't believe or will largely stop believing the moment they get a girlfriend or go off to college and regularly interact with women on a semi-regular basis in-person.
I say all this as a former teenage boy who while I was always a mild-mannered political dork saw a lot of my fellow teenage boys calm down in a variety of ways and this was in the early 2000s, let alone today.
Really appreciate both of those points. My intuition is also that most teenage boys saying misogynistic things online in 2026 wouldn't actually like living in a truly patriarchal society very much, and have no real interest in the subordination of women. Which is just to say that the prevalence of sexist or anti-feminist discourse, however concerning (!), should not be mistaken for deeply held ideology.
Great polling as always! Would be nice to see age+race+gender cross-tabs given how much people talk about "angry young white men"
Agreed! Unfortunately always tough when cross-tabs narrow down the sample, but would also be curious in results cut by race.
Interesting that the percentage of "liberal" and "moderate" are relatively static, "very conservative" sees modest growth, (at least after 30) but "very liberal" shrinks and conservative grows with age.
I wonder how much of this is generational (ie. boomers are more conservative than younger men) or how much has to do with age, i.e. young people tend to be less conservative than older people.
I personally have seen myself go from hard left to a more moderate liberal in my journey from teenager to middle-aged. A lot of my hard left politics were based on naiveté about how things work and not spending enough time outside my own liberal bubble.
I do resonate with your experience though that when I was fresh out of college, I was definitely a lot more reflexively, liberal or left-wing on issues then I am now. Although I would attribute that to feeling like the left has simply failed to change minds or achieve meaningful outcomes and outcomes really matter to me and so if moderation achieves outcomes then that's what I care about. But I also grew up in a very conservative household and my arc has been one of being Fox News pilled to anti-trump to left-wing to left of center.
There has been some research that shows this is less true than we think. For instance, for boomers specifically, those who participated in Vietnam War protests were more likely to remain liberal into their '60s and '70s as opposed to those who didn't. Although this could be viewed as just young people who supported the Vietnam War were probably already conservative or from a conservative background, whereas young people who were protesting the Vietnam War were probably liberal to begin with. I would suspect the conservatism of older people is more to do with their life experience or lack thereof rather than they got more conservative as they got older. Because some of the most anti-trump people I know are in their '70s and were former Republicans but they have specific experiences that make them more sympathetic to cosmopolitanism shall we say.
Why do you provide an 18-29 vs 30-44 breakdown on some questions, but group them together on others?
Glad you asked! Younger men in the February sample are too few in number to break out separately without risking that their views — which skew somewhat more liberal than their national demographic profile — distort the broader findings. So I combined Gen Z and Millennial respondents in all my full-sample analyses of our Feb data! BUT with the ideology/ conservative identification question at the top I was able to aggregate across multiple months of polling, giving me a much larger N. And when I limited my Feb sample to just conservative men, the ideological bias concern didn't apply, so more granular age breakdowns were possible. Hope that makes sense.
Thanks!
But what about their perspective on the countless political issues that distinguish Democrats from Republicans?