John Della Volpe has spent much of his career interviewing young people across the country as director of polling at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics and founder of his own public opinion research firm. A few years ago, he noticed youth attitudes beginning to shift.
“I started to see just a visceral difference in the focus groups and the town meetings,” Della Volpe said. “When I would ask questions like ‘What is it that connects your generation? What is it that people like me need to understand?’ Rather than hearing opportunity, hopefulness, I heard fear and angst.”
Della Volpe joined Boston Public Radio Monday to talk about his new book, “Fight: How Gen Z Is Channeling Their Fear And Passion To Save America,” and why young people give him hope for the country’s future.
Della Volpe defines Gen Z not by a strict year range, but as a group of 70 million Americans between the ages of 10-11 and their mid-20s. “It's about a collective experience,” he said, adding that Gen Z is also the most diverse generation when it comes to race, gender and sexuality in U.S. history.
Gen Z's collective experience growing up, Della Volpe claims, has been challenging. “I don’t think there’s ever been a generation that's dealt with more trauma, and more angst and turmoil in a shorter period of time, before their brain has been fully developed, which doesn't happen to an age of 25, than this generation” he said.
Della Volpe points to 9/11, school shootings, the aftershocks of the Great Recession, opioid abuse, a growing mental health crisis, the election of former President Donald Trump and now the pandemic as many of the traumatic events Gen Z has had to weather at a young age.
Those experiences have brought Gen Z to the polls and political sphere and will continue to have a real impact, Della Volpe argues.
“What I contend is that without Gen Z and other voters in their 30s, Donald Trump is reelected,” he said. “When I started this research, back in 2000, there was no difference between a younger voter and an older voter… In fact, older Americans were slightly more progressive than younger, so this generation gap that’s emerged over the last two decades is among the most significant in politics.”
However, this engagement does not necessarily carry over to every race. Della Volpe posits that among all the 2020 Democratic primary candidates, only Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg were able to rouse young voters, leading to disappointing turnouts among young people.
In contrast, Della Volpe views the 2020 Massachusetts senate primary between Senator Ed Markey and former Rep. Joseph Kennedy III as a key example of the power of the youth vote.
“He [Markey] very quickly moved to surround himself with Gen Z,” Della Volpe said. “He empowered them by bringing them into the campaign by respecting them, and they continually asked them to do more. Not just tweet, but organize their households, their schools, talk to their teachers.”
While many often think of generations as deradicalizing over time, Della Volpe thinks Gen Z is different. “There's a couple of qualities I think that stand out, one of which is this sense of community, in finding support in each other, is a very big part of who they are,” he said.
In his book, Della Volpe points to a few members of Gen Z who have already shown the power of the generation, including David Hoggs, who organized after the Parkland shooting, Darnella Frazier, who filmed George Floyd’s murder and Greta Thunberg, who inspired the School Strike for Climate.
“Why I'm so optimistic is they're choosing now to vote and engaging in that process, in addition to everything else, and they are so wise,” he said. “They challenge themselves, their fellow students, and all of us to stand up and do something about this.”
John Della Volpe is director of polling at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics and a former Biden campaign adviser. His book is “Fight: How Gen Z Is Channeling Their Fear And Passion To Save America.”
