A new poll from the NBC News Decision Desk offers food for thought, but it is hard to digest and not particularly tasty. Although the poll sampled more than 30,000 adults, the headlines it generated tended to focus on its findings regarding the priorities of the nearly 3,000 members of Gen Z who took part. The vehicle for the poll was Survey Monkey, an online instrument that handles some two million surveys per day. Surveys of this type are subject to various kinds of error which NBC attempted to mitigate. The network asserts a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points for the Gen X portion of the responses.

A member of Gen Z, for purposes of the poll, is an adult between the ages of 18 and 29. The surveys were taken between August 13 and September 1, 2025, so they are not as contemporaneous as a telephone survey would be. Note, too, that this survey was taken by NBC’s political division, which led to its most salient terms of analysis — what differences exist in the views and priorities of women and men and those of supporters of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris? Acknowledging all of that, the findings, and the differences elicited, are striking and, in some ways, distressing.

The sample was relatively evenly split among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, but overall it had a negative opinion of President Trump’s performance in office. Some 64% of Gen Z disapproves of his job performance — 74% of young female adults and 53% of young male adults disapprove. The female-male gap of 21 percentage points was the same in April. An August 2025 Gallup poll likewise found a majority of Americans disapproving of President Trump’s overall performance, with just 40% in support, a number that held steady through the summer.

The survey delved into a variety of current policy questions and social conditions, and it can be inferred from them that general anxiety about the U.S. economy and foreign affairs affected Gen Z’s responses on their long-term individual outlook. Asked about the Trump administration’s handling of immigration, a signature success from its point of view, just over 20% of Gen Z women approved while male approval was in the mid-40% range. A similar gap appeared on trade policy, where 23% of women approved and 42% of men did so. Virtually the same numbers prevailed on the question of Trump’s handling of inflation and the cost of living.

NBC’s approach measured not only the classic oppose/support split over public policy, but the emotional state and personal priorities of participants in the poll. Here is where the divergences became even sharper and sometimes startling. The poll found that roughly one-fourth of Gen Z feels anxious all of the time. Among Gen Z women, one-third feel anxious all of the time, and another one-third feel anxious most of the time. The numbers of young men are not trivial — roughly two in 10 reported feeling anxiety all of the time.

A similar result, with political polarization, appeared in response to the poll’s request that respondents rank 13 factors for their role in achieving personal success. The survey divided the sexes regarding whether they voted for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in the last election. Among female Gen Zer’s who voted for Harris, “having emotional stability” ranked third in importance in defining success. For male Harris voters, having emotional stability ranked fourth in importance ahead of nine other success indicators. Among female Trump voters, having emotional stability ranked 10th in importance; among male Trump voters, emotions ranked dead last.

This gender gap may represent a temporary condition, of course, in a time of economic stress and novel policy making. But other differences among the four segments outlined above seem more portentous. Despite it being a poll rooted in politics, NBC included among its 13 success indicators where Gen Zer’s ranked “being married” and “having children.” The age range is broad enough from entering adulthood to being nearly 30 (the age when one can no longer be trusted) that there could be an evolution of views within that range, but the differences remain large among the segments irrespective of variations in the sample. For example, female voters for Harris ranked being married and having children 11th and 12th among the 13 factors counting as success. Male Harris voters ranked them only slightly better, at ninth and 10th, respectively, for marriage and children. Female Trump voters ranked them in the middle of significance, at sixth for having children and ninth for being married.

Then comes what might be the biggest stunner: male Trump voters ranked having children first in their definition of personal success and being married fourth. The contrast with female Harris voters could hardly be greater, though all four segments rated conventional career and financial concerns near the top of the list. “Having a job or career you find fulfilling” ranked among the top three for all segments, while “having enough money to do the things you want to do” ranked among the top five success markers for all segments.

What to make of this poll is a challenge. A raw conservative political mind may see it as cause for celebration, as young female voters for Harris could be cast as not wanting children and therefore likely to be parents to a diminishing cohort. That same mind may find it encouraging that young Trump-supportive males rank having children first, and thus may be part of a cohort that, along with Trump-supportive women, will reverse the childbearing decline that has the United States at well-below replacement level fertility. These children will then, according to such a script, have full nests of their own and extend the country’s conservative trend well into the future.

There are issues with this analysis, however, even if a trend toward family formation is a very desirable outcome. To the extent that couples who marry relatively young, stay married, and place priorities on having children tend to be more conservative in general, shouldn’t the phenomenon predicted by the NBC survey already have occurred and had a major impact on averting population stagnation and decline? Does the phenomenon exist, or is it not nearly strong enough to produce a society-wide shift? Analysts across the political spectrum who favor and experiment with marriage-and-child supportive policy generally have found that these numbers are difficult for policymakers to move significantly and require significantly more bipartisan investment. Will partisan advocacy accomplish what tax and spending provisions have only nudged?

Other questions present themselves. To what extent does the next generation receive and replicate the views of its parents on social and political questions? The 1960s and ‘70s offered lessons in generational divergence that shocked the values of post-war parents. The Sexual Revolution — “acid, amnesty, and abortion” in the famous catchphrase from the 1972 presidential campaign — fed a turning inward that refused to assume responsibility for endless global conflicts. The assurance that World War II was a just war and its Allied participants heroes gave way to cynicism and protest over U.S. involvement in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Today that cynicism and protest are more likely to be features of the America First movement.

While partisans tend to enjoy any cultural or attitudinal development that they think lends momentum to their cause, satisfaction over the political divide in attitudes toward marriage and children should fill us with caution, if not alarm. A healthy society should value marriage and children across the board and at the highest level. Delays in marriage and childbearing are continuing contributors to high rates of abortion and infertility in American society. Getting married and having children are themselves conservatizing influences and continuing to delay them may tend to cement social divisions as well as deepen the wells of loneliness and isolation that make so many social challenges more difficult, as there are fewer “hands on deck” when something goes awry. A nation can deal with some degree of father absence via mentorships and other substitute father figures — when half or more of those fathers are gone, however, the holes are too many to stitch a safety net for boys at risk.

There is much more in the NBC poll worth exploring — and exploring in more depth than the poll does — and it would be regrettable if it becomes the font of a few pro- or anti-Trump or Harris stories, then slips into the circular file. One other factor NBC included in its list of 13 success signals is “being spiritually grounded.” This factor ranked ninth (pro-Harris female Gen Xers), 11th (pro-Harris males), fourth (pro-Trump females), and seventh (pro-Trump males). Of all the factors listed — (finances, job, debt, emotional health, marriage, and children), being grounded in a faith that conveys the real value each of us, and each of our children, possesses is the one that can lift up all the rest.