Voting Patterns Among Young Yanks and Brits

[Torie]

The Tories are doing better at it than the Pubs are.  So says Michael Barone. He says the Pubs need to stay away from SSM. Who knew? FWIW anyway.

[Ban my account ffs!]

An interesting article... but it's gonna take more than a token position on SSM to get young people voting Republican.

In order to get the Millennials voting Republican, the GOP will have to align itself with Millennial moral values.  And that's just not gonna happen any time soon.

[memphis]

I think Torie missed this key paragraph:

"Americans under 30 tend to support big-government policies more than their elders. They’re likely to tell pollsters that government should do more to solve problems — a position rejected by most American voters over the last 30 years."

Everything about Republican policy (and tone) is anathema to young people, who are (and this is extremely critical) much less white than old people.

[Torie]

I didn't mean to suggest SSM marriage was the sole item on the list, but it was one item on it, and I mentioned it, because the issue has particular salience in this hood, for better or worse. Anyway, as to bigger government or less, the beauty of that, is that one way or the other, these kids will learn from experience.

[DC Al Fine]

Do you have any numbers for how British youth vote? There doesn't seem to be any in the article.

[memphis]

I didn't mean to suggest SSM marriage was the sole item on the list, but it was one item on it, and I mentioned it, because the issue has particular salience in this hood, for better or worse. Anyway, as to bigger government or less, the beauty of that, is that one way or the other, these kids will learn from experience.

We've already learned from experience. We've grown up, knowing nothing but neo liberal pro-market orthodoxy. And median income keeps falling, even as technological changes have greatly improved productivity. Supply side economics and a belief in tax cuts Über Alles has been nothing short of an economic miracle for a very small number of people, most of whom were handed everything in life on a silver platter. It's been a disaster for the rest of us. But I doubt we will ever learn about anything else because the GOP, having implemented this economic nightmare, will gerrymander, filibuster, and otherwise stonewall any attempts to change it.

[All Along The Watchtower]

"  Biig government" vs "small government" is a red herring for the real divide between the haves and the have nots, and whether government will work to the benefit of the few haves or the many have nots.

Young people are mostly have nots, especially in this economy. The lack of support for the GOP is because of the two major parties, it is openly contemptuous of the have nots in ways unmatched. The Democrats aren't much better, but they're the only option for most people, realistically.

[Torie]

Big government may not be the best way for youngs to prosper as they move along in their careers, at least those who have mastered a skill set which has some substantial value added aspect to it. Of course, at least as important, is where it is big, and where it is not so big, and visa versa. Perhaps as to that aspect, Gustaf might comment about Sweden. I have this vague impression that Sweden has made pretty good choices in the "where" department, but he would know far better than I.

[Supersonic]

Interesting that young Brits seem to be to the right, economically, of young Americans. Very sound indeed.

[bedstuy]

If there's one person who understands young people, it's 68 year old conservative pundit Michael  Barone.

The big logical flaw in that article is that it doesn't consider whether the Conservative Party is generally more pragmatic, liberal and centrist than the Republican Party on every issue, not just on social issues.  So, the same political views could easily translate to being a Democrat in America and a Tory in the UK.  I'm not an expert on British politics.  But, isn't the whole political spectrum shifted towards a more left of center, cosmopolitan point of view? 

[Torie]

Yes, the article was kind of superficial. That is what motivated me to add the term "fwiw" in my introductory text. That was no accident.

[LastVoter]

An interesting article... but it's gonna take more than a token position on SSM to get young people voting Republican.

In order to get the Millennials voting Republican, the GOP will have to align itself with Millennial moral values.  And that's just not gonna happen any time soon.

I don't think those exist, Millennials do not seem to share/carry many values.

[The Simpsons Cinematic Universe]

I've noticed a significant amount of millennials who define as libertarian, but don't actually hold libertarian views on anything but civil liberties, corporate welfare, and, rarely, gun rights.

Am I the only one who has noticed this? I've always found this strange.

[DC Al Fine]

I've noticed a significant amount of millennials who define as libertarian, but don't actually hold libertarian views on anything but civil liberties, corporate welfare, and, rarely, gun rights.

Am I the only one who has noticed this? I've always found this strange.

I've noticed it. It's a symptom of only 1% of the population actually knowing what the term means.

[afleitch]

An awful article (to be expected from the author) and it needs a great deal of context.

Here is the 18-24 vote at General Elections compared with the national votes (according to How Britain Voted 1974-2010 from MORI) Labour v Conservative only

1974 15pts more Labour
1979 6pts more Labour
1983 7pts more Labour
1987 13pts more Labour
1992 11pts more Labour
1997 9pts more Labour
2001 5pts more Labour
2005 7pts more Labour
2010 8pts more Labour

As you can see, in each general election, the 18-24 year old vote is disproportionately more Labour than Tory. Of course, such patterns don’t remain as voters age. It is true that for a number of years now, social attitudes surveys have shown interesting attitudes to the welfare state etc amongst the young which is to be expected by a generation who will not benefit from it, but it doesn’t translate into votes for the Tories

As for how people voted later, we can look at what happens with each 18-24 cohort.

1974 cohort in 1983 15 points more Labour to 5 points more Labour (down 10)
1979 cohort in 1987 6 points more Labour to 5 points more Labour (down 1)
1983 cohort in 1992 7 points more Labour to 5 points more Labour (down 2)
1987 cohort in 1997 13 points more Labour to 8 points more Labour (down 5)
1992 cohort in 2001 11 points more Labour to 17 points more Labour (up 6)
1997 cohort in 2005 9 points more Labour to 10 points more Labour (up 1)
2001 cohort in 2010 5 points more Labour to 2 points more Labour (down 3)

Again, two cycles later they are still strongly more Labour than Tory and indeed for the 1992 and 1997 cohort, moved further to Labour as they aged.

[Torie]

Alfeitch, how was the data generated that provides all those fine cohort cuts?  Are there polls that sort out by five year age brackets?  If so, isn't the margin of sampling error rather large for such small cohorts?

[afleitch]

Alfeitch, how was the data generated that provides all those fine cohort cuts?  Are there polls that sort out by five year age brackets?  If so, isn't the margin of sampling error rather large for such small cohorts?

It's combined poll data and since the 1980's adjusted exit poll data.

[Torie]

Alfeitch, how was the data generated that provides all those fine cohort cuts?  Are there polls that sort out by five year age brackets?  If so, isn't the margin of sampling error rather large for such small cohorts?

It's combined poll data and since the 1980's adjusted exit poll data.

And these polls publish this fine of level of demographic granulation?  If so, that's amazing. I still wonder about the sample size though.

[afleitch]

Alfeitch, how was the data generated that provides all those fine cohort cuts?  Are there polls that sort out by five year age brackets?  If so, isn't the margin of sampling error rather large for such small cohorts?

It's combined poll data and since the 1980's adjusted exit poll data.

And these polls publish this fine of level of demographic granulation?  If so, that's amazing. I still wonder about the sample size though.

Bear in mind, they don't publish for each year, but for each age bracket (up until 60 where they just lump everyone in together) The 2010 survey for example collected some 10,000 responses, so each 5-10 year age bracket easily had over 1000 respondents. In either event as someone who is nerdy about this thing, IIRC in no election since the franchise was extended from 21 to 18 in 1969 (I have to check on 1970) have 18-24 year olds voted as a group for the Conservatives over Labour. EDIT: in a stronger bloc than the rest of the population. In 2005, the Tories were third. I'm working on something for the forum looking at this sort of thing.

[Lurker]

An awful article (to be expected from the author) and it needs a great deal of context.

Indeed. Michael Barone is perhaps the biggest partisan hack of all American pundits. That he is so respected as a 'political analyst' is just absurd.
Interesting numbers! I wonder which country in the west has the most right-wing youth vote (in practically all cases I have seen, the youth leans to the left of the general public).