Thanks to Gen Z, abortion-banning ballot measures were defeated in every state they were in. Abortion rights ballot measures were passed in every state they were in. And numerous harmful ballot measures were stopped and a ton of incredibly important ballot measures were passed. [source]
Thanks to Gen Z, not one but two trans women are going to serve in their state legislatures. They voted and we have Wes Moore leading Maryland and Maura Healey leading Massachusetts. They voted and kept the Republicans from taking over the Senate and gave us a small chance of actually keeping the House. They voted for one of their own to represent them in Florida. [source]
They turned up—I don’t know the exact demographics, only what I saw in my polling place on Tuesday. And what I saw was teenagers coming in, nervous, with their parents or friends or alone; I saw young parents coming in with their infants in strollers or their children running around and wanting to fill out the ballot for their mom or dad; I saw young dog-owners hauling in their pugs or their pittbulls or their purse dogs, letting everyone who asked coo over their dogs. I saw more people younger than me than older turning out to vote on Election Day, arguably the most annoying day to actually cast a vote in NYC. They showed up, both Gen Z and younger millenials, and every time?
We thanked them. We thank everybody for coming in to vote, because it’s a literal service that you do for your country. But I was so genuinely grateful to each and every one of them (yes, even the Republicans) for coming in and participating in a system that you’ve been told, over and over and over in the past six years, you shouldn’t participate in. Because it’s bullshit—you should, because aside from all the good you did this week, and all the mitigation of harm, look what else you did:
You really, really pissed off the GOP.