How the Last Eight Years Made Young Women More Liberal

In 2001, young men and women had similar political ideologies. Women were more likely to be liberal than men, but just by a little — and through George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s presidencies, that didn’t change much.

Then, around 2016, something shifted, a new analysis shows. Women ages 18 to 29 became significantly more liberal than the previous generation of young women. Today, around 40 percent identify as liberal, compared with just 19 percent who say they’re conservative. The views of young men — who are more likely to be conservative than liberal — have changed little.

It’s unusual for shifts in political ideology to be so pronounced, political scientists say. Young women are much more liberal than women 30 and up, according to the analysis by the pollster Gallup, which analyzed the answers to 54 questions about political beliefs that it has asked over time.

Young women have become more liberal whether or not they went to college, and whether they are white or Black.

Their move to the left is driving the large gender gap among voters this age. Sixty-seven percent of women 18 to 29 supported Vice President Kamala Harris in a New York Times/Siena College poll in six swing states last month, compared with 40 percent of young men.