American Teens on the Impact of the Presidential Election, Project 2025 and More

​​This is being republished as part of a series in collaboration with the Challenge in choosing. Chalkbeat and Headway at The New York Times will ask young people to share their insights and perspectives during the 2024 presidential election.

In early 2024, the Headway team began speaking to high school students about the upcoming presidential election alongside Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization focused on education in America. We wanted to understand how young people are processing an election in which age has become an issue, especially four years after young people were represented in the highest voting districts since gaining the right to vote for 18-year-olds.

In September, we launched the Headway Teen Election Challenge, asking questions to teenagers across the United States. So far we have heard from more than 500 teens in 37 states and Washington, DC

Most of our respondents were individuals, but we also received submissions from entire classes in cities such as St. Louis, Philadelphia, and New York City. We’ve heard from many teenagers who are beginning to shape our political system in ways that go far beyond voting.

We asked questions in every questionnaire we sent to students, and we’ve compiled the most frequently asked questions here along with references to relevant New York Times stories.

Here are some of the main themes we’ve heard so far.

Most participants expect the election to have a large or moderate impact on their lives.

The election isn’t a distant concern for most teenagers we’ve heard from so far. Well over half of our respondents say they expect to feel the impact of the outcome in their lives or in the lives of their families.

The reasons they give are not unknown. The impact on the economy, immigration and abortion policy were frequently mentioned. And not surprisingly, the teens who described themselves as most attentive to the election were also likely to expect the election to influence them the most.

Many teenagers mentioned the lessons. Some respondents who said they expected the election to have minimal impact on them cited their family’s wealth as the reason, and others who expected a significant impact said they were from lower-income or working-class backgrounds came from.

In a word: students and young people find the choice “interesting”.

When asked to describe the election in a single word, the most common answer was “interesting.” “Chaotic” (or “mess”) was the second most common description, followed by “confusing” and “informative,” which were tied in our unscientific sample.

When we asked teenagers how they informed themselves and others about the election, we expected social media to play a large role. And for some it is. However, most said this had little or moderate influence on their views.

Most respondents said they were very or mostly comfortable talking about the election with peers and classmates. Some said they and their colleagues shared a bubble in which conflict over policy was relatively rare.

However, many teens mentioned challenges in discussing the election with family members and in the classroom, although they often cited parents and teachers as important influences on their politics. This is consistent with what we have heard from teachers, many of whom express a deep reluctance to address political issues in the classroom, as things like book selection become increasingly politicized.

A surprising number of participants mentioned Project 2025.

Responses to our questionnaires included a surprising number of mentions of Project 2025, a set of comprehensive conservative policy proposals put together by the Heritage Foundation. In fact, among the words respondents used to describe the election’s potential impact, “2025” ranked higher than “Trump,” “Harris,” “economics” or any specific issue.

Even when we gathered groups of high school students in person at Times headquarters, Project 2025 came into play without prompting, and most people in attendance were at least somewhat familiar with it.

Many young people feel that they can make a difference in the election, even if they are not allowed to vote.

Young people are constantly skeptical about their role in electoral politics. Many teenagers and adults downplay the idea that there is any reason for people under voting age to pay attention to the messy, complicated politics of the United States.

Most of the young people we have heard from will not be able to vote this year. But she and her colleagues played a central role in some of the most controversial issues surrounding the election, such as abortion, gun violence and campus protests. And some have realized they can have an impact on the issues they care about beyond voting, even if they can’t vote themselves.

These teenagers are registering voters and participating in protests. Many have said they are paying as much or more attention to the voting rounds as they are to the presidential race. Ayaan Moledina, a high school sophomore, is responsible for legislation passed by the Texas House of Representatives.

We were particularly interested in what motivated these highly politically engaged teenagers, and in interviews some shared some common characteristics. They had supportive and inspiring adults in their lives who encouraged them to use their voice. They had access to sufficient resources—be it transportation to events or a stable internet connection—that allowed them to participate in ways that some youth could not. And her growing sense of history has begun to teach her that rising generations can sometimes force change in ways their elders cannot.

For 15-year-old Ayaan, the awakening began with a discussion in a fourth-grade classroom about the threat of a school shooting — an experience he knew few adults have experienced.

“I still get told to this day that you should be a kid, play some video games and play sports,” he said. “There are so many issues that affect us that you just can’t leave it to the adults because, to be quite honest, the adults mess it up pretty bad. When you talk about things that concern us, you better include us. Because we are the ones living it.”

If you are between 14 and 19 years old, we would like to hear your opinion. (And if you don’t, but know someone who does, feel free to send them this; it’s not behind the New York Times paywall.) Find what we heard with you appeal? Have you had a different experience? Let us know.

Headway’s Teen Election Challenge will continue through the election. Over the next few weeks, we’ll continue to ask questions of teens and collect memorable moments for a time capsule of the 2024 election.