Trending blue

by | Feb 25, 2020 | Editor's Blog | 2 comments

Yesterday, I wrote a piece describing what I called Bernie Sanders’ path to victory. I don’t mean that I believe he will win the state, but he does have a way forward that might work. It’s grounded in the youth vote. It’s that vote that will turn North Carolina blue in the coming decades. 

As I pointed out, the only age cohort that Barack Obama won in the state in 2008 was the group of voters under 30 years old. They delivered for him by an almost 50 point margin and fueled his victory that year. This year, the youngest of those voters will be 30 and they’re still voting for Democrats. In 2016, the 30-39 cohort gave Hillary Clinton a four point advantage over Donald Trump after supporting McCain over Obama just eight years earlier. Expect them to give the Democrats an even bigger boost this year.

Among these younger voters, the margins for Democrats shrink some as people’s views change with age and more people who didn’t vote in their 20s begin to vote in their 30s. People get engaged more in politics when they begin owning homes, paying more taxes, having kids and develop more pressing priorities than looking good and getting laid. Some of those folks are more conservative than the people who were politically active in their 20s. Still, voters under 40 will increasingly be part of the Democratic base in years to come.

All evidence indicates that the emerging voters are even more progressive than the ones who elected Barack Obama. The cohort that came of age during the Great Recession faced a difficult job market and massive student debt. The ones today are becoming politicized in the Age of Trump. They’re watching a Republican Party defend racists and blatant corruption. They grew up online and aren’t as fooled by disinformation as their parents, seeing through the trolls trying disrupt our society. If the 2018 election is any indication, they’re also more politically engaged than any generation since the Vietnam War.

These voters under 40 years old will transform the electorate in North Carolina but it will take a few more election cycles before they’re dominant. The generation still rooted in the values of a manufacturing economy that was more stable and less transient vote in larger numbers than those younger people. As my father likes to say, it will take a few more funerals before North Carolina is really blue.  But it’s coming.

2 Comments

  1. Michael Moore

    What you and a lot of others don’t seem to understand, is Trump got the working folks vote in 2016. We didn’t believe Trump but we voted
    for him to send a message to the democrats, who have been giving us nothing, This year we will vote for Bernie. He says what he
    means and means what he says. Bernie will beat Trump because we will swing all our votes to him. Democrats need to remember who
    they are the party of the people and the republicans are the party of the rich, unfortunately there is no in between.

  2. Evan

    The 2018 election is no indicator of a long term trend to the left just like the 2010 was no harbinger of a trend to the right. Democrat gains in 2018 followed a predictable pattern of the out of power party making big gains after losing the previous Presidential contest. This happened in ‘94, ‘06
    and 2014.

    And many of today’s young, liberal-leaning voters will be part of tomorrow’s prosperous middle class whose political preferences will be moderate/conservative. By the time they reach retirement, a majority will be political conservatives. And with life expectancies continuing to increase, the senior vote will be much more influential than the youth vote. This has happened for generations and there is no real evidence that these trends will substantially change.

    In short, wishful thinking cannot predict the future.

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