Generation Z begins to vote in 2020... how will that change things?

[Seneca]

Here is a helpful table, assuming one's formative years are high school, which shows which high school classes lined up exactly with a presidential administration.

Class of 2004, b. 1985/86 - Bush Jr. I
Class of 2008, b. 1989/90 - Bush Jr. II
Class of 2012, b. 1993/94 - Obama I
Class of 2016, b. 1997/98 - Obama II
Class of 2020, b. 2001/02 - Hillary/Trump

As you can see, the youngest of "Generation Z" have not yet entered their formative phase. So we really have no idea what their politics will be like. Once we know which party will win the presidency, we'll be able to guess their party identification (based on whether we expect the President will be popular or not, which relates to our expectations for the economy and so on).

I propose that there are two major watershed moments dividing "youth" into distinct cohorts. The first is 9/11. Those with substantial, adult-like memories of life and political discourse before the "War on Terror" began likely have very different perspectives from those raised in war time. I would place that cut-off right before the above table, following the logic that 15 is about the age that people become politicized. So the class of 2003 (b. 1985) and before would be part of a separate, pre-war generation.

The second watershed moment, the more important one for this generation, is the financial crisis. Those old enough to have adult-like memories of life, political discourse and economic expectations will almost certainly have very different expectations from those raised in the post-crisis economic malaise. Due to the happy timing of the recession, our cut-off is just between the Bush II and Obama I generations.

The question for our emerging "Generation Z" is whether another watershed moment is just around the corner. If not, we might expect "Generation Z" to share similar voting patterns to the class of 1998 above them. This is particularly interesting for us because the class of 1998 will be going to the polls for the first time this year. That will give us some more hard data to really settle the question.

My personal expectation is that the generation raised under Obama will be less willing to identify as "Democrat" than the Bush generation because of the weak economy that has persisted under Obama. This will only be partially offset by demographic trends which make each successive generation a bit more diverse.