Young voters favor Democrats across Arizona races, but many haven’t been reached

Young voters in the Grand Canyon State overwhelmingly prefer Democratic to Republican candidates in statewide races, a new survey found. 

A new poll conducted by YouGov of 3,310 voters aged 18-29 across eight swing states, including Arizona, found high levels of support for Democrats. With President Donald Trump facing plummeting public opinion over the Iran War and rising concerns about the cost-of-living, Democrats are hoping voters repudiate him and award the party control of Congress in November. 

In Arizona, Democrats are making strong pushes for three congressional seats held by Republicans: the open seat in Congressional District 1, Juan Ciscomani’s seat in Congressional District 6 and Eli Crane’s seat in Congressional District 2. And all of the statewide offices are up for grabs this year, and Democrats hope to hold the ones they won in 2022 — governor, secretary of state and attorney general — and flip control of lower profile offices like state treasurer, superintendent of public instruction and corporation commissioner.

A substantial share of young voters in Arizona will be making their voices heard for the first time in November. Roughly 45% are newly eligible to vote this year and about 30% said the midterms will be the first time they cast a ballot. Similar to the rest of the country’s voters, concern over the economy and affordability rank high on the list of issues young Arizonans are most worried about. Nearly 30% said they are worried about the economy and 24% pointed to housing costs and rent as their top problems. 

And for younger voters, concern over corruption has reached the same level as concern over the economy. John Ray, the senior director of polling at YouGov Blue, a Democratic research company, attributed that to increased political messaging on the topic. 

“It began to creep up early into Trump’s second term. Now, it is a top concern for several pieces of the electorate, particularly for young voters,” Ray said during an Oct. 2 virtual meeting unveiling the data. 

In Arizona, the race with the biggest difference was the contest over who should run the governor’s office for the next four years, with nearly triple the percentage of young voters, 63%, favoring Democrat Katie Hobbs over Republican Andy Biggs, who registered just 22% support. 

The secretary of state’s race also saw a substantial gap in support: 60% of young voters said they would rather cast their ballots for Adrian Fontes, the Democratic incumbent, compared to 26% who said they’d prefer Republican Alexander Kolodin. 

In the congressional races, YouGov found that young Arizona voters believe the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives should be handed over to Democrats. About 62% of young voters sided with Democratic candidates while only 26% said they plan to back the congressional bids of Republicans. 

Part of the reason so much of the share of young voters leans toward Democratic candidates is the declining popularity of Trump. Only 20% of young voters in Arizona said they viewed Trump favorably, while 76% said they disapproved of him. 

And young men, who have historically been the core of the Republican Party’s base, showed an increased shift to Democrats. In 2024, 55% of men voted for Trump. But the YouGov poll found that 58% of young men in Arizona planned to vote blue in the U.S. House races, while just 32% said they would support Republican candidates. 

“By really any measure available of the data, Trump’s reputation among young people is very bad,” Ray said.  

But, while the polling shows Democrats hold a sizable lead over Republicans, it’s unclear if that will translate into votes in November. One-third of voters interviewed said they haven’t been contacted about their plan to vote. And while  34% of young Arizonans said they feel prepared to vote, at least 26% said they feel somewhat or very unprepared to do so. 

Dakota Hall, the executive director of the Alliance for Youth Power, a national group that mobilizes voters across the country, said that more needs to be done to reach out to young people.

“Young people have made up their minds and almost nobody has contacted them with a plan to make sure they’re going out and voting,” he said. “While polls measure opinions, an election measures turnout.”