For any political party, prospects for future elections always remain on the mind. Power in the present is nice, yes, and we love to have it, but that grip on the levers is often fleeting.
Take, for instance, the Democrats. Spend five minutes on any conservative site and they will be quick to remind you of the crushing losses the party shouldered under Obama. You could cite plenty of reasons why it may have happened under that particular leadership, be it apathy toward down-ballot elections or unfair attacks leveled against him. Regardless of your reason, the fact remains that the party had an abysmal hold after Trump’s stunning victory last November.
I would be remiss if not to mention this article from FiveThirtyEight, comparing the losses under Obama to other presidents historically. I find the most salient point made is that these losses were not particularly unique to Obama’s presidency. An issue that the party faces now, though, or at least it certainly did in 2016, is a lack of bench. Mrs. Clinton expected a coronation, with no resistance along the way.
Hillary Clinton faced a tough primary against Bernie Sanders, which made her stroll to the DNC Convention more tedious than any of us expected. That disruption seemed to have unearthed the internal discord between various wings of the Democratic party, but it also showed the importance of one particular demographic.
I mentioned that a grip on power can often be fleeting for political parties, and for the GOP that seems to be most clear through the divisions in age groups. For 2016 in particular, the divide is rather stark: for 18-29 year olds, Clinton won by 18 points. She also carried 30-44 year olds by a smaller but significant margin of 8 points.
The GOP carried the older cohorts, 45-64 and 65+ by about the same margins in each instance, approximately 9 points. The numerous factors contributing to how people may choose to vote notwithstanding, age seems like a decent indicator. Consider that the two older groups vote in higher relative numbers than younger ones, and it makes sense that their influence on elections can be outsized.
But life goes on, and at some point the voters of today will be the voters of yesterday. Who then replaces them? Those coming of age today. So, if you had to bet on the future, it would be safer to target the concerns of the younger generations, to win the hearts and minds of the youth. If the GOP wants to retain their majorities, they will have to ensure that young voters begin to vote more often and more conservatively.
That said, recent elections held in 2017 have not netted positive results for the Republicans. If we take the presidential election as a baseline, we can say that age group is about D +18. For these purposes, I am going to look at more recent special election results, not because they were won by Democrats, per se, but because they were more widely followed and are likely more indicative of trends writ large. As for the elections in MT, GA, SC and the like, the numbers track about the same.
First, in a blue state that has demonstrated a willingness to elect Republicans before: New Jersey. Chris Christie won two terms as governor here, even though his numbers are horrific as he prepares to leave office. In the NJ special election, the numbers breakdown as such:
| Cohort | % of Electorate | D / R |
|---|---|---|
| 18-29 | 11% | D +48 |
| 30-44 | 21% | D +29 |
| 45-64 | 45% | D +10 |
| 65+ | 24% | R +11 |
NBC also separated the numbers into a binary, which elucidates where the divide hits in New Jersey: voters younger than 65 were D +20, and voters 65 and above were R +11.
That same day, Virginia also held elections. The numbers in the Old Dominion were no less forgiving for the GOP, especially considering Virginia as a purple, albeit more blue than not, state.
| Cohort | % of Electorate | D / R |
|---|---|---|
| 18-29 | 14% | D +39 |
| 30-44 | 24% | D +24 |
| 45-64 | 42% | R +1 |
| 65+ | 20% | R +6 |
Perhaps the most interesting race in the past year was the special election to fill Jeff Sessions’ old seat in Alabama. This election may very well have been an aberrance, given the uniquely divisive opponent Doug Jones faced, Judge Roy Moore.
| Cohort | % of Electorate | D / R |
|---|---|---|
| 18-29 | 13% | D +22 |
| 30-44 | 22% | D +23 |
| 45-64 | 41% | R +4 |
| 65+ | 23% | R +19 |
To me, the biggest takeaway here is the same for both parties: the younger vote matters. While they are not the largest swath of the electorate in relative terms, they are the electorate that will remain voting for the next sixty years. The numbers by which Democrats are winning those votes in recent elections bode poorly for the Republican Party.
While many might contest this upshot, maybe by suggesting that people become more conservative in old age, consider your friends and family. How many of them have gone from left-wingers to tea-partiers? There may be some, but I would counter that by this Pew Research study. In general, political affinity is set relatively early and remains stable throughout your life.
Furthermore, as the article drew from a Columbia University study, major political figures and events can shape the ways certain generations vote. If you became an adult under FDR, you likely voted for Democrats the rest of your life. Positive experiences in early adulthood with a particular administration seemed to imprint on voters and carried on throughout future elections.
Now, in the present, the same metric should be applied. For the 18-29 age group, the lion’s share will only remember a few major political events (to be fair, most people do not obsess over politics as much as some of us). Maybe someone else might disagree, but our memory is largely made up of the tail-end of Bush and the Iraq War, the entire presidency of Obama, and then the election of Trump.
In the most recent Gallup data, Trump holds a 26% approval rating with 18-29 year olds and a 35% approval rating with 30-49 year olds. On his last day in office, Obama held a 74% approval rating with 18-29 and 60% with 30-49. It looks like the Obama legacy could be the deciding factor in how these now and future voters act politically.
If young voters actually voted in meaningful numbers, elections could change drastically. It really isn’t too surprising that people who will skip classes they pay thousands for in college might not bother to vote, but that trend should turn around upon graduation. The current political climate, if harnessed properly, could catalyze young voters and create life-long Democrats.
Kirk Kovach is a native North Carolinian interested in writing about politics, communication and culture.
We can only hope that Mr. Kovach is correct about his generation and the slightly older millennials. At 64, I remember how appalled I was when the Reagan movement created a generation of right-wing Republicans, many my own age (27 when he was elected). Today I see every day the horrible results of that realignment, from the rise of the racist white right to the overwhelmingpower of the gun lobby and the anti-tax fanatics led by Grover Norquist; to the bashing of the social safety net and the destruction of the American union movement. All those trends were bought and paid for by the Kochs, Rutherfords, Waltons, and other radical billionaires who are — and have been for three or four generations, since their previous ascendancy in the 1920s — determined to replace democracy with feudalism. They have the resources to wage a multi-generation fight, and each time the make progress politically, they establish new methodologies to retain and grow their power after each succeeding setback. Then, of course, they move the goalposts ever further right.
Viz. the changes under Reagan of how executive compensation is treated for tax and business use — from being a liability, debt became an asset; salaries became deferred compensation “stock options” taxed at 1/2 to 1/3 the level of wages; corporate jets are tax-deductible, but not union dues (in many states); trust law allows for multi-generational beneficiaries so principle is never taxed; now the estate tax is to be eliminated …
I’m counting on the 20- and 30-somethings to reverse this trend; if they cannot or do not, there will be no more American Republic or American democracy.
I would like to be hopeful, but your reminder of how information and control is exerted by wealth makes me less sanguine. The impact of social media with its easy abundance of nonsense passing for information, or opinion disguised as thought, cannot be underestimated. I am also increasingly aware of how much the amount of information available to us carries a burden. How many issues, causes, political activities in Congress (or the state house, local city council, etc), can I realistically absorb or even think about? Or remain open to learning more about if I want to avoid just reacting from my own biases? My outrage may be boundless, but neither my time, nor my capacity for learning facts is.
What happens when the 18-24 year old has a job, a family, and all the attendant concerns? Perhaps they will vote somewhat automatically, if they vote during those years. By that time, however, much of what has transpired in these past few months will be in place for several years and another reality that we once had may be almost myth. I certainly hope not, but look at many of those 60’s radicals. Some still say the same thing, which is no longer a sufficient analysis or solution, but some went over to the dark side. The tendency to hang on to what one has and avoid risk is deeply felt when there are responsibilities to others.
I suspect the more interesting question is why some folks become more “Tea Party” as they age and others more radical or at least stay in the same progressive mold as when they were 20 or so. Perhaps political attitudes are a bit like patience. Some mellow as they age, others get more fed up with nonsense, stupidity and cruelty. Personally, life seems too uncertain to become mellow.