Youngest House Republican-elect reveals how GOP won back America's youth
EXCLUSIVE: The GOP appears to be attracting more of America's youth than in previous elections, with the 2024 cycle seeing a double-digit shift by young voters toward the top of the Republican ticket.
One of the Republicans leading that new wave is Rep.-elect Brandon Gill, of Texas, who at age 30 will be the youngest member of the House GOP conference and among the youngest in the 119th Congress overall.
"I think that's a few things. One is that younger voters are looking, more than anything, for sincerity. They're looking for people who understand what they're going through," Gill told Fox News Digital.
"And the reality is, the younger voters, they don't like things like censorship. They don't like government authorities telling them what they can and can't say. Younger voters don't like entering the workforce and finding out that it's really difficult to buy a home in Joe Biden's economy, that it's really difficult to get a good paying job, to put food on the table, to get groceries."
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The Trump-Vance campaign made multiple overtures to young voters, and young men in particular, who Republicans believed felt largely left behind and disaffected by Democratic leaders' push toward progressivism.
President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance sat for interviews with an array of podcasts that generally appeal to young men, including "The Joe Rogan Experience" and a one-on-one with comic Theo Vonn.
The strategy appears to have paid off; Fox News' voter analysis of the 2024 election saw an 11-point shift by voters under 30 toward Trump, compared to 2020.
Vice President Kamala Harris also significantly underperformed with that age group, netting 51% of those voters compared to President Biden winning 61% when he beat Trump.
Gill spoke with Fox News Digital on Friday afternoon, just after being elected president of the freshman class of House Republicans – a largely ceremonial role for incoming new lawmakers with leadership aspirations.
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"We've got to take our country back," Gill said. "And I jumped in the race because we've got to have real, conservative, hard-core fighters who are willing to stand up to the swamp, to the establishment, and actually get real conservative reform here."
The Texas Republican was elected to represent a deep-red district occupied by retiring House Rules Committee Chairman Michael Burgess, R-Texas, who is four decades older than Gill.
Asked how Republicans can sustain the momentum of 2024 in future elections, Gill said it was about following through on promises.
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"I think that the Republican Party, especially President Trump, has a very, very clear mandate, right?… We've got a majority in the House. We've got a majority in the Senate. President Trump not only won the Electoral College, he won every single swing state. He won the popular vote as well," Gill said.
"And if Republicans, if we come in, and we execute on the mandate, we do what we said we were going to do, then in two years and four years… people are going to reward us at the ballot box in future cycles."
In addition to his own fundraising during the 2024 election cycle, Gill also contributed over $170,000 to other House GOP candidates and incumbents, his campaign said.