Gen-Z voters are feeling the pressure of the election, especially ones living in D.C.

“Being a young voter in D.C., I’d say it’s a little intimidating… just because I feel like there’s been people who have been doing it for a while, who have felt like it’s their birthright and have continued to be very vocal about the fact that they’ve been voting for a while,” said Theo Eggimann, a first-time voter in the 2024 election. 

Gen-Z voters in the district are voting in one of the most politically charged cities of the nation, and have been challenged with the pressure of staying politically informed while also shaping the future of democracy. 

Eggimann, 19, is one of the many Gen-Z voters that has newly gained eligibility to vote, but he is also living in the nation’s capital during a weighty election season.

“When it comes to democracy and voting… [it’s] one of the fundamental rights that you get as a US citizen,” Eggimann said. 

Eggimann said that being in D.C. during election time is “a little scary,” but he’s more enthusiastic to have his first voting experience in the city.

“It’s really exciting to finally make my voice heard instead of having to go protest and go advocate for what I think is right and not being able to put votes behind it,” he said. 

The excitement around elections isn’t experienced similarly across all of Gen-Z, and as a 25-year-old, Jared Rutherford said the elections have always felt “very contentious.”

“On one hand, the elections matter even more now… but there’s also the threat of ‘does our vote actually matter when people can just go and try to steal and overturn the election?’” Rutherford said. 

The 2024 election will be Rutherford’s second time voting, though this will be his first time voting in D.C.

“Part of the reason why I moved to D.C. was to be more involved in what’s going on and kind of be at the epicenter of it,” he said. “I went to the Harris rally speech on Tuesday, and so it was really cool just to be in the middle of everything.” 

While Rutherford has been heavily invested in this election season, he said he doesn’t know how this election will go with so much on the line. 

“I want to believe in the democratic process, but… I mean, countries rise and fall, unfortunately,” he said. 

Patrick Thaddeus Jackson is an international studies professor at American University and said that D.C. is “absolutely a unique place to be” during this election season. 

Jackson said he has lived in the district for the past two decades, and while he is not a new voter, he encourages Gen-Z to step into the new power that they have gained as citizens.

“I think that’s important to recognize that Gen-Z has power because you are this new group that everybody is sort of competing for,” Jackson said. 

Candidates in the 2024 election have taken the initiative to gain the attention of young voters in ways they haven’t previously, such as the rise of celebrity endorsements and the use of ads and campaigns that are Gen-Z coded. 

But he warned against the attention grabs of social media , and advises young voters to be “healthily skeptical” of the information seen on social platforms. 

“There are a lot of concerns competing for your attention and a lot of them are not particularly principled and so they’re not interested in being factual,” he said. “One of the dangers of social media is precisely that it rewards like spontaneous instant reaction, as opposed to reflection.” 

Anthony Ahrens is a professor of psychology at American University who also recognizes how impressionable social media can be for Gen-Z, and how it can invoke stress while making critical decisions like voting.

“Social media will give us a feed that will meet what our demand is. We’re demanding to find out what we’re afraid about, and they’ll give it to us,” Ahrens said. 

While Ahrens could not speak much on the psychological impact of being a Gen-Z voter in D.C., he understands why young adults are experiencing fears around making the right decision. 

“The election is so fraught. There are a lot of issues that people feel very deeply about, and I think for a very good reason, and so there’s going to be the challenge of navigating that,” Ahrens said.

Ahrens acknowledges that there are “good reasons” why young voters are feeling uncertainty during this election and offers advice to young voters of both parties. 

“If your side loses, that will have things for which you’re going to be legitimately not happy. And that’s true.” he said. “That will be one point in time at which there can at least be a hope that the things that you care about could perhaps win subsequently.”