A Tufts Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement survey conducted last semester in anticipation of the 2026 midterm elections found that college students are largely likely to vote, shifting leftward and focusing on the cost of living.
Researchers conducted the 30-question survey with 5,549 adults aged 18 to 29 with oversamples of Black and Latino Gen-Z adults, allowing researchers to draw more informed conclusions about diverse populations according Alberto Medina, CIRCLE’s Communications Manager and one of the survey’s authors.
The survey found differing concerns and political ideology across demographic groups, with white men most likely to have shifted conservative, while other demographic groups like Asian American and Pacific Islander men and white women were most likely to have shifted progressive.
Overall, 35% of college students reported shifting left, while just 14% said they shifted rightward. Junior David Seaton, executive vice president of the College Democrats of America, attributed this purported shift to a lack of action from party leaders.
“Democrats, particularly young people, are becoming more progressive because they’re tired of the party establishment, tired of leaders who aren’t taking drastic action at a time of crisis for us,” Seaton said.
In response to the findings, Brian Schaffner, professor of political science, cautioned against assuming that young people’s ideologies have distinctly changed, writing in an email to the Daily that “generally such questions are not especially reliable ways to track actual change. For that, we’d be much better off re-interviewing the same cohort of young people over time.”
Still, young people generally want less corporate influence in politics, better candidates or political parties and systemic changes to the political system, including safeguards against gerrymandering, according to the survey.
Emma So, a junior and president of the Tufts Democrats, agreed that young people remain concerned about the influence of money in politics and have expressed dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party. She added that language around “Medicare for All” and “free education” is resonating with young and working-class voters.
Medina also highlighted that economic concerns such as housing and healthcare costs have been paramount for young people.
“About 60% of youth say that they are sometimes, or often, having trouble making ends meet and meeting their basic financial needs,” Medina said.
Voting priorities differ between demographic groups, with Black men and AAPI women most likely to emphasize healthcare and all other groups prioritizing “cost of living and inflation.”
Racism was among the top issues for Black college students, with 60% of men and 54% of women saying they cared about it, while abortion was a top-three issue for white, Latina and AAPI women.
Apart from the survey, Seaton also flagged AI regulation as an issue that he argues young people are concerned about.
“We are so excited to have some politicians now who are running for office who are championing things like putting a moratorium on AI data centers, restricting the development of AI beyond human control and supporting things like universal healthcare,” Seaton said.
CIRCLE — whose nonpartisan National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement project has been under investigation by the Department of Education since earlier this year — typically conducts both a pre-election survey and another post-election survey, sometimes in conjunction with other organizations. Last semester, they partnered with the organizations When We All Vote and Embold Research.
“For this upcoming cycle, it’s most likely that we’re going to be partnering with other organizations and opportunities to get data rather than fielding our own survey,” Medina said.
As the election approaches, Medina explained that data showed college students receive most of their political information from social media. He added that researchers asked questions in the survey to better understand what content students gleaned from these social media platforms.
“What we found is that young people rely most on, yes, social media posts, but from individuals and organizations that they think are trustworthy, so political organizations, advocacy organizations, community orgs, journalists [and] news organizations,” Medina said.
So also observed that while students still pay attention to traditional news outlets, the importance of social media continues to increase, in part because of how candidates have embraced it. She said that through TikTok and other platforms, candidates like Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, are showing that “politics is now cool.”
Experts disagreed over the extent to which the Trump administration — and presidential administrations more broadly — influence voter mobilization. Medina argued that young people’s likelihood of voting is driven primarily by economic concerns rather than by the party or administration in power. Schaffner, in contrast, said that dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump could motivate young people to vote.
In preparation for the midterms, both the Tufts Democrats and the College Democrats of America said they would continue to organize canvassing events. The Tufts Republicans did not respond to the Daily’s request for comment.
