2026-10-23T09:00:15.555Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/23/politics/young-men-republicans-trump-michigan-senate
密歇根州东兰辛——
一个凉爽的大学橄榄球周末，密歇根州立大学的大四学生扎克·拉森坐在草坪椅上，喝着一罐 Modelo 啤酒。他说，这罐啤酒的价格几乎是他大一时候的两倍。
在学生会附近的车尾派对上，拉森反戴棒球帽，穿着连帽衫，戴着奥克利太阳镜。他感叹周围所有东西的价格都在上涨——啤酒、学费、他卡车用的汽油——还抱怨总统没有充分关注他这代人面临的挑战。
这些挫败感已经改变了拉森的政治立场。曾经自认为是“极端保守派”并在2024年投票给唐纳德·特朗普的他，现在把总统视为“暴君”，并表示自己很可能会在密歇根州这场备受关注的参议院选举中把票投给民主党人阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德。
“看看这个州的经济状况，很难再当保守派了，”21岁的刑事司法专业学生拉森说，“而且我不再把自己称为保守派了。”
两年前，像拉森这样的年轻男性帮助特朗普重回白宫。他们对共和党的热情拥护带来了一种潮流转变，让支持特朗普成为一种文化表态。这似乎标志着一个新政治时代的曙光，用网络网友的话来说，这个时代将“为男性而设”。
现在，随着国会控制权的争夺变得至关重要，全国各地处于胶着状态的共和党候选人正努力留住这些年轻男性选民。民调显示，这代人对特朗普的幻灭感日益加深，且对未来越来越悲观。皮尤研究中心近日对登记选民的民调显示，近两倍的30岁以下男性表示，他们更可能在11月投票给民主党候选人而非共和党候选人——而2024年时双方的支持率大致持平，这样的转变令人震惊。
为了理解这种政治态度的剧烈转向，CNN采访了兰辛地区的24位年轻男性。这里有一所大十联盟的大学、州政府所在地以及两家通用汽车工厂，大学生、年轻职场人士和蓝领工人聚集在此。该地区吸引了全州范围内州长和参议院候选人的高度关注，同时也是一场竞争激烈的众议院选区所在地。
他们的不满从伊朗战争到特朗普对人工智能的拥抱，再到数据中心的泛滥，涵盖诸多方面。有些人对政治仍持观望态度；少数人还不愿完全支持民主党。但几乎所有人都表达了对生活成本不断上涨的焦虑，以及“美国梦正变得遥不可及”的恐惧。
密歇根州立大学19岁的建筑管理专业学生迦勒·克里斯蒂表示，特朗普当选曾给他这代人带来希望，认为成年的传统里程碑——稳定的事业、房子、家庭——或许会变得更易实现。
“这在他的总统任期内已经改变了，我们没有看到这些目标实现，”克里斯蒂说，“所以我觉得很多人都犹豫不决，需要更多时间来思考他们真正看重什么，以及想从美国政治中得到什么。”
在附近的兰辛社区学院，19岁的安德鲁·朱贝克说，他的父母鼓励他追求自己的爱好——植物学和生物学——但现在这越来越显得有经济风险。
“如果我们做自己想做的事，”他说，“我们要怎么负担生活的开销？”
不过，并非所有人都准备责怪特朗普。
“没有哪位总统是广受爱戴的，”密歇根州立大学19岁的商科学生乔治·霍普说，“这是一份艰难的工作。他正在做他该做的事。”
年轻男性为何正在远离特朗普与共和党
民调显示，在11月中期选举前夕，曾是特朗普总统2024年竞选联盟关键部分的年轻男性，正出现令人震惊的态度转变。CNN记者史蒂夫·孔托尔诺在密歇根州（一场关键参议院选举正在此地展开）采访了年轻男性，探讨驱动这一转变的问题。
1:40 来源：CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/15/politics/video/joe-rogan-on-why-people-are-turning-away-from-trump-ldn-digvid
1:40
2024年，经济困境和疫情带来的持续不满加剧了年轻男性的幻灭感。公众机构以及领导这些机构的年长一代的公信力遭到侵蚀。特朗普和他的竞选团队抓住了这种焦虑情绪。
在特朗普的指示下，共和党批准了新的政纲，承诺为年轻人“重振美国梦”。他竞选时提出要“迅速降低所有商品价格”，宣称“年轻人将能再次买房”，并坚称不会再把另一代年轻男性送上 foreign 战场。
特朗普通过一个快速发展的网络男性影响者生态系统——喜剧演员、职业运动员、播客主和整蛊博主——来传递这一信息。这些人的政治观点反映了年轻受众的失望情绪。
但让年轻男性对特朗普产生好感的状况并未改善，甚至在某些方面有所恶化。首次购房者的中位年龄已攀升至40岁，而近六成25岁以下成年人仍与父母同住。特朗普上任时的年轻就业人数比现在多，现在那些就业的人越来越多地表示需要做零工才能维持生计。目前已有21名美国军人死于特朗普发动的与伊朗的战争，另有数百人受伤。
特朗普为留住他们的支持所做的努力——在白宫草坪举办UFC比赛、频繁出席体育赛事、在大学和职业橄榄球比赛期间投放大量广告——似乎并未产生效果。
“我们这边的年轻人士气低落，”一位接近白宫的共和党策略师表示，“没必要掩饰这个残酷事实。”
与此同时，一些曾帮助特朗普触达年轻男性的影响者也开始持怀疑态度。受欢迎的播客主乔·罗根批评特朗普在伊朗战争上的立场，而其他人物要么对民主党表现出更大的开放性，要么完全远离了政治。
但兰辛美国汽车工人联合会第602分会主席以赛亚·富勒并不认为年轻男性正在大规模抛弃特朗普。他说，他的年轻会员在反对工会背书的立场上越来越直言不讳，而且尽管特朗普的政策与工会的优先事项相冲突，他们仍然对他的言行感兴趣。
“他们通过一个他们觉得不可触碰的人看到了自己最疯狂的梦想，”富勒说，“我们有很多年轻工人的观点与组织的观点不同，所以他们不明白自己是在搬起石头砸自己的脚。”
密歇根州立大学职业服务网络主管卡琳·汉森表示，该校学生对不确定性的反应已经发生转变。她看到过去几代人会退缩，而现在学生们正在适应一个认识：“没有谁能拯救我们。”
“他们没有关闭自己，”她说，“而且他们对A计划、B计划、C计划都持开放态度。”
21岁的数据科学与生物化学专业大四学生约瑟夫·伯克的B计划是一个重大的职业转变：成为神父。展望人工智能的兴起和遥不可及的住房市场，神学院看起来开始有吸引力了。
“我只是在寻找有稳定出路的东西，”伯克说。
兰辛社区学院18岁的马修·荷兰如果看到他曾经设想的网页设计职业被人工智能持续淘汰，他还没有备用计划。但他知道他不相信谁能保护工人：特朗普政府。
“他们正尽最大努力利用人工智能谋取利润，”他说，“并把劳动力换成人工智能。”
密歇根州立大学共和党学生会主席安东·盖加伊认为，对经济的焦虑被夸大了，而且是大多数世代都有的常见现象。他指出，特朗普对H1B签证征收的10万美元新费用，旨在鼓励公司雇用美国工人而不是外国工人，这是创造有利于年轻人的机会的一步。
“当特朗普关注这件事时，情况很好，”盖加伊说。
不过他承认，特朗普在校园里失去了很多同龄人，因为军方对伊朗采取了行动，而汽油价格也飙升了。
“这真的就是伊朗战争，”盖加伊说，“如果它很快结束，年轻人就会回到他身边。”
当年轻男性开始对特朗普感到失望时，埃尔赛义德试图把大学生变成他民主党参议院初选的关键选民，在密歇根州各地的校园里挤满了参会者。
今年4月，他与哈桑·皮克一起出现在密歇根州立大学。皮克是拥有数百万网络粉丝的进步影响者，他对以色列的批评被指控为反犹太主义。该活动引发了审查——以及数百名学生，其中许多是年轻男性。
“这引发了很多争议，但我从未见过这么多年轻男性同时联系我们，他们都表示这太酷了，”MSU民主党学生会主席阿斯塔·辛格说，该组织帮助组织了这次活动，“我觉得尤其是在我们的社团里，你能看出来这是一个重大转变。”
建筑管理专业学生克里斯蒂称赞埃尔赛义德谈到了年轻人的基本需求。兰辛社区学院学生朱贝克说，埃尔赛义德的网络存在感堪比他看到的MAGA影响者，他希望更多民主党人能效仿。例如，埃尔赛义德发布了自己锻炼的视频，他的竞选活动将自己对男子气概的看法与特朗普的浮夸作风并置。
“我在TikTok上经常看到白宫发布的内容，以及与特朗普有关的人工智能生成的内容，我觉得这非常不成熟，”他说，“同时，我认为民主党的斗争方式并不正确。”
但密歇根州立大学的新生西蒙·贾斯汀反对特朗普，他对年轻进步派中社会主义候选人和政策日益增长的吸引力感到担忧。虽然他担心大学学位太昂贵，无法为他这代人提供曾经的相同机会，但他仍然坚信资本主义是前进的最佳道路。
“我不是社会主义者，我不认为那有效。我觉得那最终会导致美国走向暴政，”他说。
共和党参议院候选人迈克·罗杰斯多次批评埃尔赛义德与皮克同台出现。但这位前国会议员的竞选团队也私下承认，要接触越来越被皮克这类人物和兴起的民主社会主义运动吸引的年轻选民，难度很大。
一些保守派对Z世代的经济担忧做出的反应是称他们懒惰且被宠坏。一名大学生抱怨20美元的墨西哥玉米卷引发的网络辩论非常激烈，以至于副总统JD·万斯都站出来为年轻人辩护。
罗杰斯并没有加入党内对年轻男性越来越多的批评，而是在近几个月加强了外联。他出现在大学橄榄球的车尾派对上，而他的竞选团队向安阿伯发送了一块移动广告牌，抨击埃尔赛义德过去对橄榄球的批评。广告牌上写着：“阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德认为你们的全国冠军是种族主义和有毒的。”（埃尔赛义德则称赞了自己的高中橄榄球经历，并指责罗杰斯有“胆怯的气场”。）
本周末，来自全国各地的共和党大学生将齐聚密歇根州帮忙上门拉票。
“不幸的是，他们在校园里做得很好，”罗杰斯在最近的一次竞选活动中说，“有点吓人，但我们正在努力。”
Why young men are losing faith in Trump’s economy
2026-10-23T09:00:15.555Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/23/politics/young-men-republicans-trump-michigan-senate
East Lansing, Michigan—
On a recent crisp college football Saturday, Michigan State senior Zach Larson sat in a lawn chair sipping a can of Modelo that he said cost nearly twice as much as it did when he was a freshman.
Tailgating near the student union in a backwards cap, hoodie and Oakley sunglasses, Larson lamented the rising prices of everything around him — beer, tuition, the gas for his truck — and a president he said wasn’t focused enough on the challenges facing his generation.
The frustrations have transformed Larson’s politics. Once a self-described “hard-right” conservative who voted for Donald Trump in 2024, Larson now considers the president a “tyrant” and said he’s likely to cast a ballot for Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race.
“Seeing the economy in this state, it’s very hard to be a conservative,” said Larson, a 21-year-old criminal justice major, “and I wouldn’t call myself that anymore.”
Two years ago, young men like Larson helped propel Trump back to the White House. Their exuberant embrace of the Republican ushered in a vibe shift that turned support for Trump into a cultural statement. It seemed to mark the dawn of a new political era that would be, in the parlance of online bros, “for the boys.”
Now, with control of Congress at stake, Republicans in tight races across the country are struggling to keep those same young men in their corner. Polls suggest widening disillusionment with Trump among a generation increasingly pessimistic about its future. Nearly twice as many men under 30 say they’re more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate than a Republican in November, according to a recent Pew Research poll of registered voters, a stunning shift after a roughly even split their vote in 2024.
To understand the political whiplash, CNN spoke with two dozen young men around Lansing, Michigan, where a Big Ten campus, the state capital and two General Motors plants put college students, young professionals and blue-collar workers into close proximity. The region has drawn intense attention from statewide candidates for governor and Senate and is home to a highly competitive House race.
Their frustrations ranged from the war with Iran to Trump’s embrace of artificial intelligence and to the proliferation of data centers. Some remain ambivalent to politics; a few weren’t ready to give Democrats a pass. But nearly all described mounting anxiety about the cost of getting by and fears that the American dream was moving out of reach.
Caleb Christie, a 19-year-old construction management major at Michigan State, said Trump’s election offered hope to his generation that the traditional milestones of adulthood — a stable career, a home, a family — might become more attainable.
“That’s shifted over his presidency, where we’re not seeing those things come to fruition,” Christie said. “So I think a lot of people are hesitant and are taking more time to think about what they really value and what they want out of politics in America.”
At nearby Lansing Community College, 19-year-old Andrew Jubeck said his parents have encouraged him to follow his passions — botany and biology — but that increasingly feels financially risky.
“If we do what we want,” he said, “how are we going to be able to afford to live?”
Not everyone, though, is ready to blame Trump.
“No president was universally liked,” said George Hoppe, a 19-year-old business major at Michigan State. “It’s a hard job. He’s doing what he’s got to do.”
Why young men are moving away from Trump and Republicans
Polls show a stunning shift happening with young men, who were a key part of President Trump’s coalition in 2024, ahead of the November midterm elections. CNN’s Steve Contorno speaks with young men about the issues driving the shift in Michigan, where a critical Senate race is playing out.
1:40 • Source: CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/15/politics/video/joe-rogan-on-why-people-are-turning-away-from-trump-ldn-digvid
1:40
In 2024, economic hardships and lingering resentments over pandemic disruptions fueled disillusionment in young men. Trust in public institutions and the older generations leading them eroded. Trump and his campaign seized on the angst.
At Trump’s direction, Republicans approved a new platform promising to “bring back the American dream” for young people. He campaigned to “quickly bring down all prices,” declared “young people will be able to buy a home again” and insisted he wouldn’t send another generation of young men into a foreign war.
Trump reinforced the message through a fast-growing ecosystem of online male influencers — comedians, professional athletes, podcasters and pranksters — whose politics reflected the disenchantment of their young audiences.
But the conditions that made young men receptive to Trump haven’t improved and, in some ways, have worsened. The median age of a first-time homebuyer has jumped to 40 years old while nearly six in 10 adults under 25 live with their parents. Fewer young people are working than when Trump took office, and those who are increasingly say they need side hustles to get by. There are now 21 confirmed deaths of US servicemen as a result of Trump’s war with Iran and hundreds more wounded.
Trump’s efforts to hang onto their support — a UFC fight on the White House lawn, regular appearances at sporting events and a bombardment of advertisements during college and professional football games — don’t seem to have moved the needle.
“Kids are demoralized on our side,” a Republican operative close to the White House said. “There’s no point in hiding the ugly truth.”
Meanwhile, some of the influencers who helped Trump reach young men have also grown skeptical. Popular podcaster Joe Rogan criticized Trump over the war with Iran, while other personalities have shown greater openness to Democrats or pivoted away from politics altogether.
But Isaiah Fuller, president of the United Autoworkers Union Local 602 in Lansing, isn’t yet convinced young men are abandoning Trump en masse. He said his younger members have become increasingly vocal in opposing the union’s endorsements and they remain entertained by Trump’s antics, even when his policies collide with union priorities.
“They get to see their wildest dreams lived through somebody who feels they’re untouchable,” Fuller said. “We have a lot of younger workers that don’t have the same views as we do as an organization, so they don’t understand that they’re shooting themselves in the foot.”
At Michigan State, the student response to uncertainty has undergone a shift, said Karin Hanson, director of the university’s career services network. Rather than withdrawing, as she has seen past generations do, students are adapting to a realization that “not one person is going to save us.”
“They’re not shutting down,” she said. “And they’re very open to plan A, B, C, and D.”
For Jospeh Burke, a 21-year-old senior studying data science and biochemistry, plan B is a dramatic career pivot: the priesthood. Looking ahead at the rise of artificial intelligence and an out-of-reach housing market, seminary school has begun to look appealing.
“I’m kind of just looking for something that has secure options,” Burke said.
Matthew Holland, an 18-year-old at Lansing Community College, doesn’t yet have a backup plan if AI continues to eliminate the web design career he once envisioned. But he knows whom he doesn’t trust to protect workers: the Trump administration.
“They are doing as much as they can to rack in profits using AI,” he said, “and trading out labor in favor of AI.”
Anton Gegaj, president of the Michigan State College Republicans, said he thinks the economic angst is overblown and typical of most generations. He pointed to Trump’s new $100,000 fee on H1B visas, aimed at encouraging companies to hire US workers rather than foreign ones, as a step toward creating opportunities that would benefit young people.
“When Trump focused on that, it was great,” Gegaj said.
He acknowledged, however, that Trump lost many of his peers on campus when the military took action against Iran and gasoline prices shot up.
“It really was just the Iran war,” Gegaj said, “and if it ended quickly, young people would come back to him.”
As young men began souring on Trump, El-Sayed sought to make college students a key constituency in his Democratic Senate primary, packing rooms on campuses across Michigan.
In April, he appeared at Michigan State alongside Hasan Piker, a progressive influencer with millions of online followers whose criticism of Israel has drawn accusations of antisemitism. The event attracted scrutiny — and hundreds of students, many of them young men.
“It generated a lot of controversy, but never have I ever had so many young men reach out to us at once, and they all told us that was so cool,” said Aastha Singh, president of MSU College Democrats, which helped to organize the event. “I feel like especially in our club, you could see that was a big shift.”
Christie, the construction management major, praised El-Sayed for speaking to young people’s basic needs. Jubeck, the Lansing Community College student, said El-Sayed’s online presence rivaled what he’s seen from MAGA influencers and he wished more Democrats would emulate it. El-Sayed, for example, has posted videos of his workouts as his campaign juxtaposes his spin on masculinity against Trump’s bravado.
“I see on TikTok all the time what the White House is posting, and the AI generated content that involves Trump, and I just think that’s very immature,” he said. “At the same time, I don’t think the Democratic Party is fighting that the correct way.”
But Michigan State freshman Simon Justin, who opposes Trump, said he’s wary of the growing appeal of socialist candidates and policies among young progressives. While he worries that a college degree is too expensive and won’t offer his generation the same opportunities it once did, he remains convinced that capitalism is the best path forward.
“I’m not a socialist. I don’t think that works. I think that would be essentially a lead into tyranny for America,” he said.
Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for Senate, has repeatedly criticized El-Sayed for appearing alongside Piker. But the former Congressman’s campaign also privately acknowledges the difficulty reaching young voters increasingly drawn to figures like Piker and a surging democratic socialist movement.
Some conservatives have responded to Gen Z’s economic worries by calling them lazy and entitled. An online debate over a college student’s complaint about a $20 burrito grew so animated that Vice President JD Vance weighed in to defend young people.
Rogers hasn’t joined the growing criticisms of young men from his party and has stepped up his outreach in recent months. He has appeared at college football tailgates while his campaign sent a moving billboard to Ann Arbor attacking El-Sayed’s past criticism of football. “Abdul El-Sayed thinks your national championship is racist and toxic,” it said. (El-Sayed, for his part, has touted his high school football credentials and accused Rogers of having “beta energy.”)
This weekend, College Republicans from across the country will descend on Michigan to help knock doors.
“Unfortunately, they are doing a good job on campuses,” Rogers said at a recent campaign event. “It’s a little scary, but we’re working on it.”
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