- In 2024, 40% of Latter-day Saints between ages 18-29 identified as Republicans and 35% as Democrats.
- However, a majority of young Latter-day Saints still voted for Trump and hold conservative views on social issues.
- Latter-day Saints continue to have the highest retention rate of active adult members among U.S. religions.
Young Latter-day Saint voters in the United States identified less with the Republican Party in 2024 compared to 2020, to the point where roughly an equal share identified as Democrats, according to a new analysis.
Comparing two of the largest national surveys in the U.S. shows this is a part of a trend, with young U.S. members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints increasingly describing themselves as more politically moderate.
Making up less than 2% of the electorate, Latter-day Saint voters are difficult to poll. However, in 2020 the Nationscape survey polled more than 5,000 Latter-day Saints and in 2024 the Cooperative Election Study polled more than 1,500 Latter-day Saints.
The generational shift identified by these results does not mean the GOP is at risk of losing its advantage in regions of the country populated with many Latter-day Saints, political scientist Ryan Burge wrote Monday in a post to his blog, Graphs about Religion.
“Younger LDS voters supported Trump in 2024, they hold fairly right-leaning views on social policy, and they perceive the Democratic Party as drifting further left. In other words, I wouldn’t expect Utah to turn purple anytime soon.”
For years, political observers, including Burge, predicted a young Latter-day Saint exodus from the Republican Party. But these surveys suggest young Latter-day Saints are leaving the GOP label even as they continue to lean Republican on issues and at the ballot box.
The partisan gap disappears
Between 2019 and early 2021, the Nationscape survey asked just under half a million respondents, including 6,452 Latter-day Saints, with a margin of error of +/- 1.2%, to identify their partisan leanings. The divide between age cohorts was clear.
Latter-day Saints around age 60 identified more with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party by a 50-percentage-point margin. That partisan advantage shrank to 30 points among 40-year-olds and 15 points among 20-year-olds.
The Cooperative Election Study conducted from 2022-2024, among around 150,000 respondents, including 1,587 Latter-day Saints, with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 found the partisan gap among young Latter-day Saints disappeared almost entirely.
Around 40% of Latter-day Saints between the ages of 18-29 identified as Republican, 35% identified as Democrat and 25% as independent, the poll found. This means the youngest Latter-day Saint voters in the U.S. are almost evenly divided in terms of party affiliation.
Meanwhile, 60% of Latter-day Saints ages 30-39 identified as Republican, and 23% as Democratic; 52% of those 40-49 identified as Republican, and 35% Democratic; 66% of those 50-64 identified as Republican, and 19% Democratic; and 77% of those over 65 identified as Republican.
The stark age split in party affiliation can be partially explained by the way globalization and social media have exposed young people to a wide variety of viewpoints, according to Libby Reynolds, 23, a recent Brigham Young University graduate, and a self-described liberal.
“I think that it’s really good,” Reynolds told the Deseret News. “I mean, looking at democracy generally, like a plurality of political parties is healthy. There’s more discussion about solving the issue itself, instead of partisan identity.”
Top issues attracting members of her generation to the Democratic Party include climate change, “LGBTQ rights” and abortion access, Reynolds said. Church leaders have affirmed the importance of environmental stewardship, while upholding doctrinal teachings about heterosexual marriage and the sanctity of unborn human life.
Still voted for Trump
While young Latter-day Saint voters appear less eager to lump themselves in with the Republican tribe, Cooperative Election Study data shows that they have actually become more open to supporting President Donald Trump, and retain many policy stances of older generations.
In 2016, only 38% of Latter-day Saint voters supported Trump. This fell to just 31% in 2020. But 2024 saw a 25-point swing in favor of the GOP nominee, with 56% of older Gen Z and younger millennial Latter-day Saints supporting Trump, the survey found.
This implies that most self-described independents among young Latter-day Saints returned to their Republican roots on Election Day, according to Burge, as 63% of Latter-day Saints ages 36-50 and three-quarters of Latter-day Saints over 50 supported Trump.
The shift in partisan affiliation also appears to not have impacted younger Latter-day Saints’ social views. In 2024, the Cooperative Election Study found that 33% of Latter-day Saints under 40 — and 33% over 40 — said they favored allowing abortions for any reason.
Likewise, banning gender transition for minors was supported by 74% under 40, and 81% over 40. Banning abortion pills by mail was supported by 51% under 40, and 57% over 40. And requiring age checks for porn was supported by 88% under 40 and 94% over 40.
“The trend being that they are still socially conservative is a good thing because I think those are the things that, at least culturally, matter a lot,” said Joe Ballard, age 25, a BYU senior who describes himself as a conservative. “Those are the issues that I really care about.”
Ballard’s personal experience supports the poll data that most young Latter-day Saints hold views consistent with the ones they were raised with on issues of gender and family, as well as the important of fiscally conservative economic policies.
Young Latter-day Saints may have warmed up to Trump in 2024 because they could compare life during the first Trump term to that under the Biden administration, which Ballard told the Deseret News contributed to growing inflation and “pushing gender ideology.”
Faith and politics overlap
The takeaway from these poll results is not that young Latter-day Saints are becoming more liberal, according to Burge’s analysis. It is that they are much more likely to consider themselves “somewhat conservative” or “middle of the road” in survey responses.
In some ways, this is true across age groups. Data scientist Alex Bass recently entered Latter-day Saint policy preferences from the Cooperative Election Study into a political compass tool. He found that the GOP has gradually left Latter-day Saints behind.
Over the past five presidential election cycles, Latter-day Saints have become slightly more ideologically centrist, according to Bass’s analysis, even as the largest GOP religious bloc, evangelicals, has shifted toward a more aggressive conservative position.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has declared itself “neutral in matters of party politics.” Church leaders have reiterated that members “come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and may have differences of opinion in partisan political matters.”
However, Burge told the Deseret News he expects the more-moderate Gen Z and millennial Latter-day Saint cohorts will reflect much more conservative views in future decades because “the more liberal Latter-day Saints will stop identifying with the church.”
“There’s a real possibility of a ‘purifying’ effect happening — only true believers left," Burge said.
Ballard said he has seen a pattern of those “who adopt liberal policy” leaving the church because “they don’t align at all” on social issues. But Reynolds said she knows liberal members who are just as firm in their belief because they have worked through the tension between faith and politics.
While the rate of those raised in the church who remain affiliated as adults has fallen from around 70% to 50% over the past 20 years, Latter-day Saints have the highest retention rate of actively participating members of any religion in the U.S., including among Gen Z and millennials.