A group of young state lawmakers gathered at the White House this week to discuss how to build on the inroads President Donald Trump made with their demographic in the 2024 election.
Twenty-five state lawmakers, ages 25 to 35, traveled from across the country with Run GenZ, sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council, to meet with the White House, Pentagon, and House GOP leadership to discuss how to reach younger voters and get their generation involved.
“Bringing these young leaders to D.C. during this milestone sends a clear message: the next generation isn’t waiting its turn. Gen Z is stepping up now. The next generation of conservative leadership doesn’t begin in Washington — it begins in the states,” Run GenZ Executive Director Adam Pennings told the Washington Examiner.
“When bold, young people lead at the state level, the national conversation shifts,” he added. “And when young people lead, real change begins — community by community, chamber by chamber, election by election.”
According to a poll by Stay Tuned NBC, Generation Z, both women and men, favor Trump less than the older generations. However, former Vice President Kamala Harris underperformed with young voters in November, with men in particular shifting away from the Democrats.
As more Gen Z lawmakers enter office, Republicans feel they have an opening to keep chipping away at Democrats’ traditional dominance with the youth vote.
Kentucky state Rep. TJ Roberts, a 27-year-old attorney, outlined to the Washington Examiner the messaging the lawmakers discussed with the White House on how to reach younger voters.
“We discussed the importance of free speech,” he said. “That was one of the first policy platforms that President Trump discussed in Agenda 47. We have a censorship industrial complex that needs to be addressed at every level of government in order to make sure that Americans, by their birthright, have the right to speak their mind.”
“Government efficiency has been a huge thing that people knew was coming,” Roberts added, naming school choice as a state priority and the border at the federal level. “Those were some of those issues that really stuck with me.”
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX), 31, was sworn into Congress three months ago, just days before Trump returned to the Oval Office and Republicans started their work with a trifecta in Washington. The Texas firebrand became the youngest GOP member in the 119th Congress and was also named the Republican freshman class president.
Many Gen Z lawmakers at the state level look to Gill for guidance on messaging, which makes them feel that the younger generation has a place at the table.
“I think one thing [the future] looks like is not being hemmed in by political correctness,” Gill told the Washington Examiner. “[Diversity, equity, and inclusion], for instance, we can talk about it is unjust, but this is flagrant anti-white racism, and that’s how I have framed it. That’s the truth.”
“You just have to say things in a direct and blunt way that really reveals the truth,” Gill continued.
A Newsweek analysis of major pollsters since early March shows support from younger voters has fallen off since the 2024 election, with 37% approving and 58% disapproving of his job performance today.
But Republicans believe Trump offered a template that future candidates for office can build upon. Social issues featured prominently in the president’s campaign rhetoric, but he also focused heavily on the economy, as voters still felt the effects of inflation under former President Joe Biden.
“While he isn’t doing as well with Gen Z, I do think that the president has engaged an entirely new electorate of young voters that were politically apathetic before, that are now actually getting involved in politics because they watched COVID ruin their lives, ruin their prom, ruin their high school graduations or college graduations,” South Dakota state Sen. Amber Hulse told the Washington Examiner.
Hulse is one of the 25 who traveled to Washington this week. She is the youngest female Republican senator in South Dakota’s history, reaching many young voters on social media.
“On social media, I think I try to be a lot more relatable, and I share my life,” Hulse said. “I’m just trying to be authentic.”
Hulse, who was Miss South Dakota in 2019 and Miss South Dakota USA 2023, graduated from Georgetown Law. The 26-year-old shares bits and pieces of her life on Instagram while promoting her campaign. She said the White House shared ways to be effective surrogates for the president’s agenda as they try to appeal to younger voters.
“They want to see more state and local elected officials promoting, especially our age, promoting President Trump’s agenda, probably to push more younger voters to see from our perspective, obviously we’re very supportive of the president, and so when you have someone your own age sharing that message of support, it may resonate in a different way than hearing someone who’s a 40-year-old white man sharing the same message,” Hulse said.
Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump made many appearances on podcasts and media outlets that young voters pay attention to, including Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) demonstrated Republican interests in these newer formats by inviting conservative podcasters Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh to Trump’s joint address.
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Many Democrats, for their part, have agreed they could take a page out of the GOP book when it comes to utilizing these mediums after Republicans succeeded with their campaign strategy in November.
“I think we’ve got to be active on podcasts. We’ve got to be active in speaking to young voters. We’ve got to be going to college campuses. We’ve got to really speak at sporting events, and football games, and get young people where they’re at,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) told the Washington Examiner.