As the 2026 midterm elections approach, University of Arizona students are navigating a political landscape that doesn’t always fit neatly into the traditional Republican-Democrat divide.
Some students identify with a political party. Others are looking for alternatives to the two-party system, while some say they have become disengaged from politics altogether.
For these students, political identity is not always defined by a single party label. Their experiences reflect different views of what young voters want from politics, from greater representation to alternatives beyond the two-party system.
In the third part of our Student Perspectives series, AZPM spoke to young voters about what they’re looking for in a candidate, and found party affiliation is becoming increasingly unimportant.