College Chloe
 | |
| Era | The Modern Era |
|---|---|
| Age | 20-25 |
| Home | Ann Arbor, MI |
| Demographic | student, white, progressive |
| Lean | Strong Democrat |
| Race | white |
| Predecessor | Protest Paige |
Chloe is a politics student in her early twenties at the University of Michigan. She is a campus progressive of the Trump and Biden years who marches for climate action, transgender rights and a ceasefire in Gaza, and who votes Democratic in every election.
Who they stand for
Chloe stands for young college-educated women, the most Democratic-leaning group in the electorate and the group that moved furthest to the left over the decade. This shift opened a gender gap among voters under thirty that became a major story of the 2024 election. Her political causes followed one after another. They include the March for Our Lives protests in 2018, the school climate strikes and the Sunrise Movement in 2019, the Sanders campaign in the 2020 Democratic primaries, the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, which led Michigan voters to pass an abortion-rights amendment on the state ballot, and the Gaza campus protest encampments of 2024, including one on her own campus.
Protest Paige, her predecessor from the 2000s, marched against the Iraq War and took her politics from the filmmaker Michael Moore and from political blogs. Chloe takes her politics from social media instead, and she treated feminism as a settled cause until the Dobbs decision proved otherwise. Chloe's turnout, her political positions, and her contempt for Republicans are the same across all three generations of this persona line.
Playing to them
A president wins Chloe's support with a climate bill, student-debt cancellation, a federal guarantee of abortion rights, protections for transgender students, and a public demand for a ceasefire in Gaza. She will not forgive a new oil pipeline, an immigration raid, a shipment of arms to Israel, or a Democrat who hedges on any of these issues, and she says so online the same evening. She votes Democratic regardless, so the risk for a Democratic president is a loud and disappointed campus rather than a lost vote.
Winning her support on transgender rights loses the support of Iowa Martha, Heartland Hank and Texas Tom outright, and irritates Podcast Pete and Renter Ryan, who read it as the left lecturing them. Winning her support on Israel loses the support of Rachel Goldstein and Military Mike. Cancelling student loans loses the support of Union Jack, who paid off his own trade-school debt. Plain Jane, who is the same age and sex as Chloe, wants cheaper rent and a quieter kind of politics, and finds Chloe exhausting. A president cannot satisfy both of them at once.
Where they live
The five states where College Chloe makes up the largest share of the electorate in the modern era:
- Vermont
- Massachusetts
- Rhode Island
- Oregon
- Washington
Lineage
Madison Steph → Protest Paige → College Chloe
The same type of voter in three decades: a young, white, university-educated woman on the left who marches and votes every time. What changes is the cause she campaigns on and where she gets her politics from. Steph campaigns on feminism, still an open fight after the Thomas confirmation. Paige campaigns against the Iraq war and the Patriot Act, and gets her politics from Michael Moore and the liberal blogs. Chloe treats feminism as won and campaigns on climate, trans rights and Palestine, and gets her politics from social media. Her position on the spectrum, her turnout and her contempt for Republicans are the same in all three.