As voting day for the 2024 US presidential election approaches on 5 November, first-generation Americans of all backgrounds are left with the weight of deciding between domestic policies that affect them, and foreign policies that will affect those in their homelands.
Generation Z – those born in the mid-to-late 1990s to the early 2010s – now has an eligible voting population of over 40 million, including a new batch of over eight million new voters this year. Nearly half of these voters identify as people of colour.
As of 2023, there are approximately 4.3 million first-generation immigrants under 35 in the United States, while the number of second-generation Americans (children of immigrants) under 35 is estimated to be around 14 million.
Both of these categories are commonly referred to as “first-generation Americans”, leading the combined total to be approximately 20 million.
Although there is little data on how many of them are registered to vote, it is expected to surpass last election’s turnout, with 57 percent of voters ages 18-34 saying they are “extremely likely” to vote in 2024.
For many young Americans who have witnessed more than a year of what seems to be an endless and expanding war in the Middle East, the idea of voting for the same party that they deem as the perpetrator of genocide in Gaza – or even participating in electoral politics at all – is off the table.
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