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PEW: Youth-Driven Demographic Shift Moves the Electorate Left

A new report by the PEW Research Center confirms what rising primary turnout is already telling us: there is a huge demographic shift approaching in the electorate in the form of the Millennial Generation, and that shift will largely benefit the Democratic Party.

Partisan ID

As the PEW data indicates, this is a shift that is occurring among almost all segments of the Millennial generation, but the shift along gender lines seems to be most significant. Among young voters (18 - 29 year olds), in the last 16 years, young women have moved from a +8 advantage for the Democrats (50 - 42%) to an incredible +35 point advantage (63 - 28%). Among young men, that partisan identification has moved from a 10 point deficit (42 - 52% Republican) to a 14 point advantage (52 - 38%).

These are seismic shifts in the electorate and they are hugely significant.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, it was Generation X and the late Baby Boomers who occupied the 18 - 29 year olds slot in the electorate. They were very conservative as a group and helped elect Reagan and Bush Sr., and usher in the Gingrich Revolution. That laid the groundwork for the Republican majorities we have suffered through these last two decades.

party id 1992

The Millennial Generation is larger than the Baby Boom, and on almost every issue they are vastly more progressive. That fact is starting to come through in their voting habits and party identification. As the PEW data makes clear, Millennials could do for Democrats what the late Boomers and Gen Xers did for the Republicans - forge a new governing majority.

One more item of note in the Pew data. Research tells us that if you can get a voter to cast their ballot for a certain party in their first three major elections, that person tends to become a party voter for life. The PEW data shows that Gen X may be one of the first generations to actually buck that trend:

Generations Shift

Apparently the Bush Administration's policies are so toxic that they are driving away one of the Republican Party's most loyal bases.

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April 29th, 2008 1:25pm
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another way to look at the 80s and 90s

Submitted by WendyNorris on Thu, 2008-05-01 11:45.

Okay, so I'm a bit prickly about this assumption since I'm a late Boomer but... is it fair to say that the young people in the 80s and 90s were responsible for the conservative movements of Reagan and Gingrich -or- should we more properly acknowledge that a nucleus of conservative-evangelical groups focused on youth voter registration while the Dems dithered?

I was in college from 1981-1986. There was a lot of political activity by the left at the grassroots level but the presidential candidates were uninspiring, had little regard for young people as voters and Watergate/recession/Iran hostage crisis left a very bilirous taste in our mouths for establishment politics.

Sure, there was a subset of young people who fell under the "Morning in America" spell and voted. But coming out of college with student loan rates at 15%+ thanks to Reagan (which I finally paid off last month, thankyouverymuch) please don't make me personally responsible for a decade of political regression too.

Demographics

Submitted by Michael Connery on Thu, 2008-05-01 12:07.

I'm not saying there wasn't any politcal activity on the left. Anti-Nukes, Anti-Apartheid, etc.: clearly yougn people were active, just not at the ballot box when it came to voting for Democrats.

I'll admit that "responsible" may be too big a word. But the youngest Boomers and oldest Gen Xers, as a demographic cohort did in fact cast their votes for Reagan and Bush, and they did tend to identify and vote more for Republicans.

While your personal experience - and that of many others - might belie this, those are ultimately anecdotes and exceptions to the rule. In the aggregate, Gen X and the late Boomers were more conservative than they were progressive in their voting and party habits.

I think you are downplaying that too much when you use the word "subset." Plurality and/or majority are closer to the truth.

Also, while there was little on the left/Democratic Party to attract young people (and little attempt to do so), in the 1980s the Republican Party actually did target young people as a voting constituency. The GOP and Dems had very different strategies regarding youth in those years and it paid off for them at the polls for the next two decades.