BU Today: We saw Gen Z come out in huge numbers for Democratic candidates—do you expect they’ll have a similar impact in 2024?

Shames: I sure hope so. I think Gen Z is already more political than either of the preceding generations. I think there’s an awareness earlier on in their lives—and this may have to do with some serious existential threats facing this generation, like climate change and gun violence—that politics matters for this generation. 

So, my guess is yes, they will turn out again, just based on what we saw in 2020 and what we saw last week. But it also depends on the tenor of the campaigns and who will run for the Democrats. I’m assuming it will be Biden, but if somebody young and popular runs against Biden [in the Democratic primaries] and then loses, that could be a deterrent for Gen Z voters. We saw that happen in 2016.

BU Today: Is there anything either Trump or Biden (if he seeks reelection) should do to win over this bloc?

Shames: There’s a portion of the voting bloc that is on Trump’s side, for sure. Mostly young, conservative white males, and some white females, but it’s more male than female. The young conservative movement is a smaller portion of that electorate, but vocal, and I think they will turn out. And the question for me is about the progressives, which are a larger portion of the generation. Will they actually show up? When there’s a high voting rate among this generation, it breaks pretty solidly Democrat. So most of politics to me is a question of turnout.

But it’s not hugely exciting for my students to have two older white guys shouting at each other on debate stages. That’s just not their experience of the world—which I think is a great thing—but to not see their world mirrored in politics can sometimes mean that they want to dismiss politics. And it’s just vital that they do not. 

BU Today: What about another voting group: white women? We saw them vote for Trump in 2016 and for other Trump-endorsed Republican candidates in 2022. Can Trump count on them again in 2024?

Shames: White women are highly split by age and education, such that the more educated tend to vote Democratic. And I think that what we saw in the midterms last week is that an enormous impetus to turn out to vote [for them] was the fight over abortion. I think that Republicans have severely underestimated the depth of its connection to women’s lives.
 
It is actually an issue that shapes women’s entire lives. From the second you get a period until long after the end of your own reproductive life—because you’re worried about your daughters and granddaughters and sons and grandsons, whose lives could be shaped by unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. So, I do think that there’s a solid cadre of older white women who break for Trump, but that’s not something that I think he can depend on as a white woman base. 

I hope Republicans are seeing that that’s actually not a great issue for them, at least in the ways that they’re pursuing it, which is this unbendingly conservative, no-abortion-under-any-circumstances kind of way. The majority of the country does not agree with that. That’s pretty clear.

BU Today: More broadly, what does Trump’s possible candidacy mean for the Republican Party? Is it still Trump’s party?

Shames: It was never Trump’s party. Let’s be really clear: he won the 2016 primaries as a minority candidate, and won the 2016 election not by popular vote, but because of the way the Electoral College works. 

His popularity was very low all throughout his presidency. I don’t think the party ever liked having him as president. They certainly made use of him to pass certain legislation, and Republicans liked having the White House, but I think they always disliked him. And the feeling was mutual.

So, the question is: how strong is Trump’s faction versus some of these other factions? And can he harness a couple of the other factions under his MAGA banner? It seems plausible; he’s done it before. But the midterms showed a lot of people in his own party his weaknesses. It is not inevitable that he’s going to be the nominee. Political parties are supposed to weed out the overly ideological or the people who don’t really support the party platform. I happen to think that most Republicans support the rule of law and democracy. I don’t think that’s a party that supports a lot of what Trump stands for. So my hope is that cooler heads will prevail.