Karoline Leavitt: I Am a Gen Z Republican and My Time in the Trenches Taught Me This About 2024

The first step toward fixing a problem is admitting you have one; and the 2022 midterm election results proved the Republican Party has a youth crisis. The most colossal challenge facing the GOP is the inability to resonate with the most-influential voting bloc in our electorate – my generation, Generation Z.  

I turned 25 just a few weeks prior to winning the GOP Nomination in New Hampshire. Among many reasons, I ran for Congress because I recognize the dire need to bring youthful voices into our party, and fight back against the rapid, leftist indoctrination of my generation. I was raised to appreciate our nation’s fundamental values of faith, family, and freedom – values that are uncommon and unpopular among my peers. Generation Z has been indoctrinated to be faithless, anti-American, self-proclaimed socialists who care about changing their gender more than paying their bills.  

The 2022 midterms were the first electoral test on the impact of Generation Z Americans, and Republicans failed miserably. 18-29 year-olds flooded the polls to cast their ballots for Democrat candidates. In House races like mine, 63% of Generation Z Americans voted Democrat. In all races nationwide, 18-29 year-olds voted Democrat by 28 points. In contrast, the GOP’s dwindling base of voters 65 years and older only voted Republican by 13 points.  

Despite my youth and energetic, grassroots campaign – I was no exception. I lost my hard-fought race at the hands of my own generation. Thousands of students at college campuses in my district, namely the University of New Hampshire, utilized New Hampshire’s same day registration law and voted against me in their quest to end the alleged “threat to democracy” and protect their utmost priority – “abortion rights.”  

Student loan debt is a big issue for Generation Z. Here, borrowers stage a rally in front of The White House to celebrate President Biden canceling student debt and to begin the fight to cancel any remaining debt on August 25, 2022, in Washington, DC.
(Paul Morigi/Getty Images for We the 45m)

By 2024, Gen Z and Millennials will make up nearly half of the electorate, replacing Baby Boomers once and for all. The future of the GOP – and the future of America – literally lies in the hands of these young, woke, ideologues.  

The Republican Party, including establishment leadership, donors and grassroots voters, must admit this problem and ask the hard questions – how can we combat the leftist messaging from every powerful institution in our country, from TikTok and the mainstream media, to the higher education university system and Hollywood? How do we compete with the Democrat Party, which is openly promising free stuff to the most-privileged generation in history?  

First, we need to talk about issues we know young Americans care about, such as the environment, the unaffordability of higher education, lack of affordable housing, and economic opportunity. If we make these issues part of our party’s platform, we can then draw young voters in and educate them on our conservative principles.  

For instance, Republicans cannot continue to allow the Democrats to own an issue as popular and simple as protecting the environment. Republicans want clean water, air and forests, too, so why don’t we say that, instead of allowing the Democrats to portray us as evil Earth-haters who want the planet to end in 10 years? If we continue to bury our heads in the sand on perceived ‘Democrat’ issues and solely talk about what we are against, we give the opposition free rein to falsely prescribe what we are for.  

Perhaps more importantly than adjusting our message, is sharing that message on the mediums utilized by young voters. Nearly 75% of Generation Z Americans read their daily news on social media. Yet the Democrats invested millions more in digital advertising than the Republicans. We cannot relay our message to young voters if we refuse to meet them where they are. And until TikTok is (hopefully) entirely banned, we can no longer ignore it. Republicans are nowhere to be found on this highly used app – giving the Democrats their own, free, powerful platform to indoctrinate America’s youth.  

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Lastly, Republicans need to aggressively reform America’s most important institution – the public school system. The fight to take back our culture and cure the woke cancer infecting the minds of our children must take place where they meet each day – the classroom. Our nation’s decaying sense of patriotism begins and ends in America’s schools, as proven by the removal of Bibles and American Flags, and the erasing of the names of historical figures like Abraham Lincoln from school buildings. 

Rather than spend millions of dollars to attack fellow Republicans in primaries (as happened to me in my race), the Republican establishment should invest in school board races in every state across the country to elect common-sense individuals who will fire woke school administrators and bad teachers. 

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Rather than greenlight billions of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, Republican leadership should push for a massive overhaul of the failed common core system, and propose a rigorous academic plan to increase reading, writing and math levels. It’s time for Republicans to play hard ball, like the Democrats do, and threaten tax dollars to any school district that implements radical gender ideology and critical race theory, and fails to adequately educate its students.  

Each day, young Americans are turning 18, unapologetically woke and ready to join the leftist cult on their college campuses. In this 24/7 digital age, young people are more engaged than ever before, as registering to vote is as simple as downloading Snapchat on the iPhone. For these reasons, Generation Z is being taught to be the greatest, growing threat to America, as we know her and love her. The GOP needs to act aggressively and quickly, before it’s too late.  

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