Majority of Gen Z believes Trump is better than Biden for the economy, new survey finds

We are exactly 6 months away from the election in the US. Today we’re unveiling a brand new CNBC General Generation Lab poll on where voters from 18 to 34 stand on key issues such as the economy, work and their lives. When we asked who they would vote for, right now, it’s really just neck and neck between President Biden and former President Trump at 36% and 35% respectively. Also nearly 30% supporting Robert Kennedy Junior. As for which candidate would be better than the economy, Trump edges out Biden by a six point margin. Let’s discuss this further now with Cyrus Beschloss, founder and CEO of Generation Lab. Cyrus, good morning from London. I think my first question is based on this data, why? Why do these people 18 to 34, why do they believe that Trump is better for the economy? It’s a great question. It’s a great question. Biden won the youth vote by 24 points in 2020. So this this data that you just highlighted, this is part of, this is part of a long slide of data that’s documented Biden sliding with with young voters. RFK as you mentioned is a massive wild card here. It’s got 29% in the survey. You can’t expect that number to drop before November is young people learn about some of RF KS passions. They don’t square too closely with young voters and given recent events, lot of smart people have said that the war in Gaza will decide the youth vote one way or another. The data does disagree though. I mean each quarter of our polling with CNBC it’s found that jobs in the economy are #1. So Biden’s going to win young people. But if Trump makes big gains from 2020, that’s a big fire for Biden HQ. OK, jobs and economy #1 Issue for younger voters between 18 and 34. Again, the focus of this poll. I want to get to something else that definitely concerns, well doesn’t only concern young people, but certainly a lot of young people. TikTok So 70% of respondents said they want the US government to allow TikTok to operate just as it always has. Do they not see any safety concerns or do they? I mean, why is it that they don’t see any of the issues that are are US lawmakers seem to see? I I think they do. But, you know, I mean, if if Gen. Z had a logo, it’d be like the don’t tread on me flag, but instead of a instead of a snake, you’d have a TikTok logo at the center of it. Yeah, no, we we did some, we did some fancy footwork actually in the last couple of weeks to to test the power of TikTok with young people. And so in a poll a few weeks ago, we asked responding to who is supported for president. So I might say I support Trump. Then we asked them again, OK, Now assume that that person that you chose moves to ban TikTok. Then we asked them again. The results blew my mind. 32% of respondents changed to a different candidate. So big issue. Really. OK, another hot button issue. Of course it’s abortion. So I’m looking at the data here. More than 60% of respondents said that they would not move to a state that limited access to abortion. How big of an issue does that mean? Based on this poll, would that be in this upcoming election? Yeah, huge. If I’m sitting in the C-Suite of a Fortune 500 company in my state’s governor is floating the notion of an abortion ban, I might be calling them up. Not sure if CEOs have the governor’s cell phone. It’s a separate conversation to make sure they understand the implications of abortion laws on how much my state can compete for best talent. It’s kind of like, you know, what Kate Griffin did with with crime in Illinois. I wonder how long it’s going to be before you see ACEO move shop to a new state on the basis of abortion laws. All right, so last question. We are here on CNBC. Our focus really is on money and finance. I thought this one was just fascinating. So you talk to respondents about where they’re investing right now, 42% said they’re not investing at all. And then I’m looking here, another 18% say, well, my money’s just in cash. Give us a sense. I mean, do these younger people did not see some of these gains in the stock market? Are they just not interested? Why are they not investing? Yeah, this has been the music in the, in the, in the economy in the last few quarters. We keep trying to figure out the gap between sentiment and economic indicators with young people. I think it’s easy. Young people have a job, but not one that pays them enough. If you’re not getting paid enough that record smashing stock market, not something you’re going to be participating in. So right now for young people, job market is kind of like, you know, getting nosebleeds behind a pillar at a basketball game up in the rafters, you know, you count towards the overall attendance number. But are you enjoying the game? Can you even see it? Maybe. Depends how many beers you’ve had.