Young People Name Economy, Rising Fascism, and Foreign Policy As Their Top Concerns

NextGen America’s Pulse Check Texts shows top priorities for 18-29-year-olds nationwide

Washington, D.C. — Today, NextGen America released results from their most recent listening campaign, or Pulse Check Texts. The peer-to-peer campaign conducted via text messaging aims to better understand young people across the country, both on and off college campuses, and their top issues.

The project is an expansion of NextGen America’s work from 2025, and includes outreach in Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. For the Pulse Check campaign, NextGen America’s digital organizing team and volunteers are contacting over 1 million young people ages 18-29, and so far have contacted over 600,000 young people.

The analysis published today represents hyper-targeted outreach to 94,000 young people on specific campus locations like Michigan State University, University of Iowa, University of Georgia, University of Las Vegas, and University of North Carolina-Ashville, among others.

The young people NextGen America contacted named economy and affordability as their top issue (20%), rising fascism/threats to democracy second-most (14.6%), and foreign policy third-most (12.5%).

To access the complete results and analysis, check out NextGen America’s Substack, In Case You(th) Missed It.

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About NextGen America
NextGen America is a nationwide organization with a mission to educate and empower young people to organize, vote, and lead.