Ava Hickman, president of the College Republicans at Duquesne University, watched as many of her peers shied away from politics leading up to the divisive 2024 presidential election.
But it was a different story after November when now-President Donald Trump succeeded in his comeback bid for a second term.
At the Duquesne College Republicans’ first meeting after the election, around 50 students attended — double the normal attendance, she said. Students were so excited and chatty, they didn’t have time to get to the club’s scheduled activities.
It was impressive, but not a shock to Ms. Hickman, who believed support for Trump was growing among her peers in the months prior to the election. She, too, was won over by Trump several years back. A left-leaning moderate in high school who found Trump to be “arrogant,” Ms. Hickman became more conservative and grew to like Trump when she began questioning the establishment and institutions.
Ms. Hickman’s hunch proved right. Though Vice President Kamala Harris did outperform Trump among young voters, it was by a much smaller margin than her predecessor, President Joe Biden, did in the 2020 election.
College students have long been viewed as more liberal, and at the three largest campuses in Pittsburgh, they are. Liberal students outnumber conservative students four to one at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, and three to one at Duquesne, a 2024 survey found.
But at each of these campuses, conservative student leaders say there is a growing movement of young people who lean Republican — and are becoming more comfortable expressing their opinions on campus.
“When I first got here, it was so intimidating to be a Republican on campus. It was intimidating to wear a Trump hat or raise your hand in class and be the one person who disagrees,” said Ms. Hickman, a sophomore studying political science. “Now, it’s definitely easier… [The election results] give us the courage to speak up."
Voters aged 18-29 shifted 10 points toward Trump in 2024 compared to 2020, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University. Ms. Harris earned 51% of the youth vote compared to Trump’s 47%.
This shift was more pronounced among young men, of which 56% cast their ballots for Trump this election cycle. That’s a 15-point jump from 2020.
And though more young women voted for Ms. Harris, this demographic also moved toward Trump. In 2024, 41% of young women voted for Trump, a nine-point increase for the president compared to 2020.
“Young people are still the age group within our nation that has the highest support for Democratic candidates, but [there was] a significant drop from +25 to +4 [in support for the Democratic ticket] nationally,” said Sara Suzuki, a senior researcher with CIRCLE.
At CMU, the campus was divided when Trump won, said Anthony Cacciato, president of the elite school’s College Republicans.
Some students were “distraught.” Others were “ecstatic,” though not vocally, because “there is always the concern of being a social outcast for expressing the fact that you're a conservative,” said Mr. Cacciato, a junior who studies economics and political science. The child of two small business owners, Mr. Cacciato attributed both his political activism and majors to the “salient experience” of watching his parents’ businesses face tough times in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when former President Barack Obama was in office.
“There are people on campus that feel like the silent majority of the country spoke,” he said. “That’s something that’s reflected in the fact that [Trump] did win the popular vote, in large part due to the efforts of young people.”
In the weeks before the election, CMU’s College Republicans chapter tripled in size, from 20 members to 60. Membership has continued to grow; it now stands at about 80 students.
New members are largely women — outnumbering men two to one — and the club’s executive board is made up of predominantly women, Mr. Cacciato said. College Republicans at Pitt and Duquesne said their clubs have a balance of male and female members.
The top issue for young people in this election was the economy, CIRCLE found. This rang true among many right-leaning students, said Mr. Cacciato and Ms. Hickman. Other primary issues for Republican-voting students included immigration and abortion, they said.
Julia Cassidy, president of Pitt’s College Republican chapter, summed up the reason why she believes young voters shifted toward Trump in one word: change. While tabling on Pitt’s campus, Ms. Cassidy repeatedly heard a familiar story from student voters: “I'm not super political, but I don't like what has been going on the last four years.”
“A lot of people just wanted to see change,” said Ms. Cassidy, a sophomore studying political science. “For some students, that was change economically or change in regard to immigration and the border. For other students, it was, ‘I don’t want to see this social policy pushed.’”
Ms. Harris’s struggle to differentiate herself from Mr. Biden was off-putting to many students, Ms. Cassidy said. She added that students noticed Trump’s appearances on podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience and This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von.
It’s becoming “much less taboo” to be a Republican on campus, Ms. Cassidy believes. The Pitt College Republicans are seeing increased interest from students who are “a little bit less fearful” to join. The club currently has 45 official members.
Ms. Hickman agreed. The Duquesne College Republicans currently have about 80 members in their GroupMe, a messaging app. Typically about 25 students attend each meeting. Twelve traveled to Washington, D.C., in January to attend the March for Life, an annual rally against abortion. Students at Pitt and CMU also made treks to D.C. last month — in their case, to attend inauguration parties.
“I hope that students now have the confidence to say what they think, respectfully [and] kindly, knowing that they're not crazy. The majority of Americans believe something similar to what they believe and voted the way they voted,” Ms. Hickman said.
Will Gen Z’s shift to the right stick? That remains to be seen. About a third of young voters are undecided, Ms. Suzuki said, and the youth voting block is “complex” — not the monolith that many make it out to be.
At the moment, though, Mr. Cacciato believes young Republicans have the opportunity to build upon their momentum on college campuses.
“There’s an opportunity to reinvent campus culture,” Mr. Cacciato said. “We’re potentially moving toward a culture of more free speech [and] open dialogue as young people start to become a more balanced demographic.”
First Published: February 2, 2025, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: February 3, 2025, 7:42 p.m.
