age polarization reversal in 2016?

[Mr. Morden]

For me the most striking thing about the very early 2016 polls is the crosstabs on age.  In the 90s and into the early 2000s, Republicans' strongest demo was middle aged married people with kids.  They actually did better among the middle aged than among olds.  We were already starting to see a shift in this in 2004, when Bush's strongest age group was people over 60 (though he only did marginally worse among those aged 30-44):

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

But age polarization accelerated dramatically in the Obama era, with Obama doing best among youngs, and both McCain and Romney doing best among olds in 2008 and 2012 respectively:

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1

http://edition.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president

The early 2016 polling matchups pitting Hillary Clinton against every other Republican shows that Clinton's best group is still voters under 30......but the Republicans best group is among those aged 30-45.  They do better among voters aged 30-45 than those over 45, or over 65.  This is true nationally for Christie, Rubio, and Ryan, and true in Florida for both Bush and Rubio:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=167584.0

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=167946.0

What to make of this?  Is this real.....that in 2016, we'll see Republicans doing comparatively better among the middle aged than they did in 2008 and 2012, but worse among olds?  Is it specific to Hillary Clinton?  Or is it specific to Obama, that he engendered such age polarization, and in 2016 we'll go back to "normal"?  And how would this change the electoral map?

[TJ in Oregon]

The difference is probably an additional appeal specifically of Clinton to the elderly remnant of the New Deal Coalition. She (well more her husband) will remind the older folks about a better era in American politics while the middle-aged will have grown up too late to have a feel for the New Deal and 1950s era and instead view Reagan and the 80s with the same sort of nostalgia.

[BluegrassBlueVote]

So the racist dinosaur vote is somewhat back into play for the Democrats? Good to hear. Always a powerful voting bloc.

[Ty440]

So the racist dinosaur vote is somewhat back into play for the Democrats?

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

So the racist dinosaur vote is somewhat back into play for the Democrats?

[Brittain33]

This is the Achilles Heel of the Republican gerrymander. If the Dem coalition reverts to something more like the Gore electorate than the Obama electorate, Dems will still win our 90% seats on lower turnout while other district would suddenly become competitive.

[Skill and Chance]

This is the Achilles Heel of the Republican gerrymander. If the Dem coalition reverts to something more like the Gore electorate than the Obama electorate, Dems will still win our 90% seats on lower turnout while other district would suddenly become competitive.

I don't quite understand what you mean here.  Are you suggesting a rural D resurgence with more moderate candidates?  I don't think that could happen until a few cycles after gay marriage is settled as an issue.  Also, in a world where birth control and gay marriage are out of the news, Westchester, Wake and Loudoun start voting R.

[Brittain33]

What I'm thinking is that if older whites outside the south vote more Democratic, even if minority turnout goes down, a bunch of gerrymandered Republican seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and to a lesser extent, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa become much more competitive. Not necessarily rural and not driven by social issues as much as the Dem candidate not being as distant from their lives.

[TJ in Oregon]

What I'm thinking is that if older whites outside the south vote more Democratic, even if minority turnout goes down, a bunch of gerrymandered Republican seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and to a lesser extent, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa become much more competitive. Not necessarily rural and not driven by social issues as much as the Dem candidate not being as distant from their lives.

I think the type of older white voters who Hillary would win that Obama lost are mostly the types who regularly vote Democratic downballot anyway. I'd be quite shocked if this changes the picture in the US House.

[Mr. Morden]

This effect seems to be stronger than ever in PPP's latest poll of Minnesota, and it doesn't just seem to be a consequence of HRC being the Dem. nominee, as it holds with Klobuchar as the nominee as well:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=168355.msg3601430#msg3601430

We've seen this in enough polls now that they can't all be outliers.  The 30-45 age demo really does seem to be the GOP's strongest age bracket for 2016, rather than olds, as it was in 2008 and 2012.  Perhaps just a consequence of not having a black as the Dem. nominee.  (Though maybe having a woman as the Dem. nominee also matters, since there are more women than men alive among the over 65 crowd?)

What impact would this have on the electoral map?  We've seen some strong Dem. trending in young, high population growth states recently, like CO, VA, and NC.  Might we see those trends slow down or even reverse slightly in 2016?  While on the flip side the Dems start doing a bit better in those aging Rust Belt states?

[Stranger in a strange land]

This is the Achilles Heel of the Republican gerrymander. If the Dem coalition reverts to something more like the Gore electorate than the Obama electorate, Dems will still win our 90% seats on lower turnout while other district would suddenly become competitive.

I don't quite understand what you mean here.  Are you suggesting a rural D resurgence with more moderate candidates?  I don't think that could happen until a few cycles after gay marriage is settled as an issue.  Also, in a world where birth control and gay marriage are out of the news, Westchester, Wake and Loudoun start voting R.

That won't happen for a long time, because Republicans simply can't stop fighting the culture war, even if they know they're losing. A huge part of their coalition demands that they keep at it, and Republican primaries keep spitting out candidates like Akin, Angle, Mourdock, O'Donnell, Bachmann, and West.

[memphis]

The Dems do a bit better among young whites than among old whites, but not much. Most of the age polarization comes from old people being much whiter than young people.  Something big is going to have to change for the GOP to have a prayer in 2016. But Republicans will only consider marketing changes and electoral process changes instead of product changes. That says a lot about them.

[Dakota Robertson]

agree

[All Along The Watchtower]

The Dems do a bit better among young whites than among old whites, but not much.

18-29 generation of whites isn't uber-Dem?

[Mr. Morden]

The Dems do a bit better among young whites than among old whites, but not much. Most of the age polarization comes from old people being much whiter than young people.

Right, but as I said, this polarization, with the Republicans doing better among olds than any other age group, really only existed in the Obama elections (though to a lesser extent as well in 2004).  Look at the 1990s exit polls or the 2000 exit poll.  Republicans did as well or better among the middle aged than among olds.  And the same thing is true of these early polls for 2016.  How do you explain that?  "The makers vs. the takers"?

[Mr. Morden]

Here, for example, is a remarkable graph from Andrew Gelman, comparing age variation in voting patterns from the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections:



While the 2016 polls aren't showing a full reversion back to 2000, because the youngs are still heavily Democratic, they are showing something like a reversion to 2000 among the over 30 age subgroups.

[Link]

So the racist dinosaur vote is somewhat back into play for the Democrats?

I agree.  I mean Obama is black.  While us nonracists tend to forget that certain other people haven't.

[memphis]

The Dems do a bit better among young whites than among old whites, but not much.

18-29 generation of whites isn't uber-Dem?

Hardly. The 2012 exit polls had them at 44 Obama-51 Romney. All other age groups of white were about 39 Obama-60 Romney. There's a real difference beyond statistical noise, but it's not that big a difference. 
Link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-exit-poll
As for why older whites used to be more Democratic, I think remembering the Great Depression and the Democratic response is important. A lot of those folks knew actual hunger. Not so much the case today.

[pbrower2a]

The Dems do a bit better among young whites than among old whites, but not much. Most of the age polarization comes from old people being much whiter than young people.  Something big is going to have to change for the GOP to have a prayer in 2016. But Republicans will only consider marketing changes and electoral process changes instead of product changes. That says a lot about them.

The Republicans now have the wrong message for young people of any kind. To begin, sexual repression (as shown by some republicans who loudly proclaim opposition to contraception of any kind and abortion under any circumstances) always offends young voters. Second, the capitalist system has worked badly for young adults who have yet to achieve much of a stake in the economic order. They have yet to see that the current fashion of allotting all possible resources to economic elites who bear no responsibility toward subordinates of any kind can work well (maybe it cannot). Third, young adults are typically heavy in debt for student loans if they have middle-class occupations. Contrast how things were in the 1950s when young accounts generally had savings accounts. Creditors (holders of savings accounts, bonds, notes, and insurance policies) tend to be on the Right (slightly-to-the-right if they are small-scale creditors, but Far Right if they are big creditors relative to debtors); debtors tend to be on the Left.  Creditors want their "pound of flesh" through deflation and rigid enforcement of terms of debt; debtors want loose money to trivialize debt and economic opportunities that allow them to pay debt off easily. Fourth, a recent right-wing administration that has failed catastrophically is the only one that the very youngest voters know as a model of 'conservatism' in the Presidency. The youngest voters of 2012 were born in 1993 and 1994 when Bill Clinton was President, and they remember Dubya well -- as an unmitigated catastrophe.

That is before anyone discusses race, religion, and ethnicity. Current young adults are not as white, Anglo, and Christian as any generations that we know. They are also much less tolerant of divisive bigotry.

What Howe and Strauss call the Millennial Generation (born 1982 to about 2000) is similar in many respects to the GI Generation (born 1901 to 1924) at like age -- it is more likely to trust an optimistic government that offers big solutions than pessimistic elites that insist that the world is becoming more dangerous and improvident. It less accepts "pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die" promises in return for miserable lives in This World than do older generations. It sees the prospect of America in decline in economic promise for all but self-serving, exclusive elites.

It is likely to become more politically conservative over time, but not before it starts getting its own politicians elected. Current young adults will likely develop some stake in the economic order and will face cultural challenges from its kids -- but that is far too late for current Republicans to exploit. If anything it is possible that Democratic successors of Barack Obama will adopt some of the more classic positions of conservatism -- like promotion of thrift and investment with rational objectives vastly different from what Dubya and his buddies pushed.   Current young adults will never look sympathetically upon any speculative boom as a solution to economic distress even fifty years from now.