What matters to young voters of color right now

There are more than 41 million eligible Gen Z voters in the United States. Nearly 45 percent of Gen Z voters are people of color.

In a presidential race that will be decided by margins, unlocking what’s important to this highly diverse generation could be invaluable, this year and years to come.

“We really don’t understand [Gen Z] well,” said Matin Mirramezani, co-founder of Generation Lab, a polling organization that focuses on young voters. There are 8 million young people who can cast their first-ever ballots this year.

“There's been this dearth of data, and that's really been a big part of the challenge for both the campaigns and the pollsters and social scientists,” he said. “Some of the political science literature that we see about crystallization of political views across party lines is not necessarily holding water when it comes to young people.”

Butoyi Gadi, a 21-year-old University of North Texas student, is voting in a presidential election for the first time this year.

“I think that Gen Z voters in particular have a kind of pulse on what it's like to kind of be an American in this kind of new day,” he said.

PBS News spoke with several young voters on what’s driving them to the polls

Subscribe for exclusive content in our newsletters

PBS News podcasts

Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app

Find more from PBS News at

Subscribe to our YouTube channel