30% of 18- to 29-year-olds say history will judge Trump as 'the worst president ever'

• Thirty percent of Americans between 18 and 29 years old believe history will judge Trump as the "worst president ever," according to a new Harvard poll.
• 56% of young people said history will judge Trump as "bad," "terrible," or the "worst president ever."
• Just 56% of young Republicans said they want Trump to "play a key role in the future of Republican politics."

Young Americans overwhelmingly dislike former President Donald Trump. And, according to a new Harvard Institute of Politics poll, 30% of Americans between 18 and 29 years old believe history will judge Trump as the "worst" president in US history.

Just about a quarter of young people - 26% - assessed the former president positively, while 56% said history will view him as "bad," "terrible," or the "worst president ever." Eleven percent said he'll be seen as an "average" president.

Even young Republicans are divided on whether Trump should play a central role in politics going forward. Just 56% said they want Trump to "play a key role in the future of Republican politics." And when asked to choose between the GOP and Trump, 42% of young Republicans said they are supporters of the Republican Party over the former president. About a quarter said they're primarily Trump supporters and another quarter said they support both the GOP and Trump.

The majority of these young conservatives are sympathetic or subscribe to Trump and his allies' false claims about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Two-thirds of young people believe President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, but just about a quarter of young Republicans think Biden was legitimately elected. Twenty percent of young GOP-ers believe Trump won reelection against Biden - and this number leaps to 35% among young Republicans who live in rural areas.

At the same time, Biden has attracted historic support from young Americans. The 78-year-old former vice president has the highest approval rating among young people of any first-term US president since the poll was first conducted 20 years ago.

The Harvard poll surveyed 2,513 US residents between 18 and 29 years old from March 9 to March 22, 2021. The margin of error is 2.6%.