Ahead of the European election, striking data shows where Gen Z and millennials’ allegiances lie.
Far-right parties are surging across Europe — and young voters are buying in.
Many parties with anti-immigrant agendas are even seeing support from first-time young voters in the upcoming June 6-9 European Parliament election.
In Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany and Finland, younger voters are backing anti-immigration and anti-establishment parties in numbers equal to and even exceeding older voters, analyses of recent elections and research of young people’s political preferences suggest.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration far-right Freedom Party won the 2023 election on a campaign that tied affordable housing to restrictions on immigration — a focus that struck a chord with young voters. In Portugal, too, the far-right party Chega, which means “enough” in Portuguese, drew on young people’s frustration with the housing crisis, among other quality-of-life concerns.
The analysis also points to a split: While young women often reported support for the Greens and other left-leaning parties, anti-migration parties did particularly well among young men. (Though there are some exceptions. See France, below, for example.)
Also worth pointing out that only a slight majority of boomers are very conservative. If you look at the demographics of the last couple presidential elections, you’ll see that only slightly more boomers voted conservative than liberal, and only slightly more younger folks voted liberal than conservative.
There’s this impression that the distinction is much more significant than it actually is. As a liberal boomer, I’m a little sensitive about it.
I dont know about the US but in the UK the age gap is vast. Something like 80% of 75+ vote tory or extreme right and a similar % of under 30 for lib/lab/green
If that’s correct, that’s a much more significant difference than in the US.
Does Europe have the same kind of post war baby boom generation that the US has?
Cant speak for all Europe, but again in the UK it exists but is far less pronounced than in the US. A slight uptick rather than a boom. Dont forget that while the US economy was going gangbusters after the war as the only untouched industrial economy most of europe was either rebuilding from ruins or was close to bankrupt.
w.r.t. voting intension, I slightly over egged it from memory, but it was about 75% left for under 30s and 70% right for over 70s at the last election. link
