In 2001, young men and women had similar political ideologies. Women were more likely to be liberal than men, but just by a little — and through George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s presidencies, that didn’t change much.

Then, around 2016, something shifted, a new analysis shows. Women ages 18 to 29 became significantly more liberal than the previous generation of young women. Today, about 40% identify as liberal, compared with just 19% who say they’re conservative. The views of young men — who are more likely to be conservative than liberal — have changed little.

It’s unusual for shifts in political ideology to be so pronounced, political scientists say. Young women are much more liberal than women 30 and older, according to the analysis by the pollster Gallup, which analyzed the answers to 54 questions about political beliefs that it has asked over time.

Young women have become more liberal whether or not they went to college, and whether they are white or Black.

Their move to the left is driving the large gender gap among voters this age. Sixty-seven percent of women ages 18 to 29 supported Vice President Kamala Harris in a New York Times/Siena College poll in six swing states last month, compared with 40% of young men.

Fifty-three percent of young men in those states backed former President Donald Trump, compared with 29% of young women.

It’s hard to say definitively what changed for young women in the past eight years, researchers said. But the rise in liberal identification suggests that for a generation of women who were raised being told they could do anything, the triple punch of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump, the #MeToo movement and the overturning of Roe v. Wade forcefully shaped their political views.

These are women who grew up in a period with a focus on cultivating girls’ self-esteem, civic engagement and involvement in previously male arenas, said Melissa Deckman, a political scientist who is CEO of PRRI, a research firm, and author of “The Politics of Gen Z,” published this month.

Events since 2016 gave a contradictory message, she said: “Sexism isn’t a thing of the past.” That moved young women to become more politically active.

“The end result of all this is by the time these girls become voters, they have more confidence — ‘internal political efficacy’ is the term political scientists would use,” she said. “Basically, they believe in their ability to make change.”

In general, young people are more liberal than older people, but also less likely to vote. Yet, Generation Z women are highly politically engaged, data shows, and more of them are voting than men their age. Political events when voters are about age 18 are powerful in shaping their lifelong views, research shows.

Together, these patterns suggest that today’s young women could be a longtime Democratic force, and a challenge for the Republican Party.

Gender bomb of the 2016 election

In interviews, young liberal women said the 2016 election was a turning point. Many said that in the Democratic primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had helped mold their liberal views. As the race became in part a referendum on gender — Clinton running to be the first female president, Trump calling her a “nasty woman” and bragging about sexual assault on the “Access Hollywood” tape — those views deepened, they said.

Danielle Stephenson, 25, said Obama’s election felt like a “moment of real hope” for a Black girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama. So did Clinton’s candidacy her freshman year of college — and Clinton’s loss felt painful.

“It was the most disillusioning thing to have that experience, not just as a woman in America, but as a girl becoming a woman,” said Stephenson, now a graduate student in Oakland, California.

“Even though it was this crushing disappointment,” she said, “I’m honestly really glad that it happened because it made me feel angry in a really productive way. It was like, wow, we have a lot of work to do. Maybe things haven’t changed as much as I thought they had when I was a kid.”

The #MeToo movement, which accelerated the next year, cemented some young women’s political stances. They connected the movement with Trump’s victory — and both opened their eyes to gender inequality, they said.

Together, the events “pushed me farther left,” said Kaili Hart, 22, a hotel manager in Taos, New Mexico.

Abortion, climate and guns

For other young women, the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, was most impactful.

“My views have always been liberal, but what really took my views to the level they are now is when Roe v. Wade was overturned,” said Allison Simpson, 25, who works in health care customer service in Lorain, Ohio. “It really struck fear into me, to be honest.”

Shauna Shames, an associate professor of political science at Rutgers University, said political scientists call this rational political behavior in response to a policy threat, which in this case was “losing control of rights they have taken for granted for a very long time.”

The Gallup analysis found that three additional issues were most strongly driving young women’s liberal identities: climate change, gun control and race relations.

Role models and echo chambers

Other factors also probably contributed to young women’s leftward shift, political scientists said. In 2018, a record number of women won House seats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who was 29, and other progressive women.

Seeing someone like yourself in office can spur political involvement, political scientists have found, especially for young women. In interviews with Gen Z women, “they all talked about the profound influence of people like AOC,” Deckman said. “For the first time, they saw someone young, diverse, social justice oriented, running for Congress and also giving makeup tutorials on TikTok.”

Social media might have influenced young women differently than other groups, said Lydia Saad, director of U.S. social research at Gallup and an author of the analysis, because algorithms are fine-tuned to show people information that reinforces their views.

Ivonne Flores, 29, a business compliance officer in Cibolo, Texas, said that in her offline life, the people she knows hold a range of beliefs. But on TikTok, she almost always hears from people who agree with her.

Her liberal views have deepened in the Trump era, she said. As an immigrant from Mexico, she was upset about his demonization of immigrants. As “a proud American,” she was ashamed when she heard friends in other countries say U.S. politics had become “a joke.”

“People say Trump just talks,” Flores said. “But it wasn’t all talk when we got the right to have an abortion taken away from us.”