It’s giving Obama 2008: US Zoomers catch the millennial optimism bug

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico speaks after winning the Texas race during a midterm election night watch party in Austin, Texas, November 3, 2026. — AFP pic

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 — Will the “blue wave” bring back skinny jeans, owl necklaces, mustache motifs and stomp-clap-hey music?

Since the Democrats’ blowout midterm elections victory on Tuesday, a sense of nostalgia has supercharged talk of “millennial optimism” — a social media trend that harkens back to the hope and innocence of the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Videos and posts mentioning the meme are racking up tens or even hundreds of thousands of views celebrating the fashion, music and aesthetic that defined millennials’ young adulthood.

For many members of Gen Z — people who are currently aged 18 to 29, also called Zoomers — Tuesday’s vote brought a taste of the euphoria that the previous generation — the millennials, currently aged 30 to 45 — experienced when Barack Obama was elected as president in 2008 on the Democratic ticket.

The parallels are striking: Both generations voted against a backdrop of open-ended conflict abroad and deep economic uncertainty at home.

Just as young voters were seen as critical to Obama’s success, these midterms saw massive swings toward the Democratic Party among under-30s.

An AFP analysis of NORC Civic Health & Elections Project data showed that 65.5 per cent of voters aged 18-29 voted for Democrats, compared with 30.6 who opted for Republicans.

Furthermore, among young people who voted for Republican President Donald Trump in 2024, 16 per cent chose a Democrat in these legislative elections.

According to preliminary results from a New York Times nationwide survey, young men aged 18 to 29 veered toward Democratic candidates by nearly 40 per centage points since the 2024 elections, and women from that age group by 27 points.

Hope

“This new blue wave that has been introduced in our country makes me feel very hopeful,” Aliya Baddely, 20, told AFP. She hopes to see Ohio’s governor-elect, Amy Acton, make good on her promises on education and data centre regulation.

Fellow Zoomer Caleb Varns, 22, also spoke of a sense of hope. He and Baddely are both students at the University of Akron.

“We have a lot of firsts now. I mean, we have first Muslim in the Senate, first openly gay man,” he said, referring to Michigan senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed and New Hampshire’s Chris Pappas. Both were elected Tuesday.

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a millennial and one of the most prominent younger voices in Congress, said in an Instagram post “imagine all the seats we flipped last night... because you (created an electoral wave) the first time you ever voted, you’re like ‘Yeah, we can change the world!’”

Optimism or discontent?

But it’s not all optimism.

Zoomers, whose school and university experiences were upended by the pandemic, are unsettled by what the future holds — from climate change to the threat of artificial intelligence on their career prospects.

For Alberto Medina, head of communications at a US-based research organisation, the Centre for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, said the two elections are really only comparable because they resulted in “a big Democratic wave that was powered by young voters.”

This year’s electoral wave was powered by “a Gen Z dissatisfaction more than millennial optimism,” he said.

“Since the past two years, nothing in my life has gotten better,” said Caden Ferguson, 22.

And while he voted Democratic he said he knows several people who did not vote at all.

“I think they kind of believe both parties are corrupt,” he said.

Alyssa Schick, 23, said she saw these elections as a “major referendum on the current state of the country.”

“It is a reprieve that the country has been waiting for,” she said.

But Democrats shouldn’t take the Zoomer vote for granted.

“One of the features of young voters, they are not party or candidate loyalists,” Medina said. “They might make totally different choices in 2028.”

“I will change again if I feel that not enough is happening and more change needs to happen,” Lorentz warned. — AFP