2.75 million Romney voters will be dead by 2016.

[retromike22]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/the-gop-is-dying-off-literally-118035.html

By combining presidential election exit polls with mortality rates per age group from the U.S. Census Bureau, I calculated that, of the 61 million who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, about 2.75 million will be dead by the 2016 election. President Barack Obama’s voters, of course, will have died too—about 2.3 million of the 66 million who voted for the president won’t make it to 2016 either. That leaves a big gap in between, a difference of roughly 453,000 in favor of the Democrats.

But also more importantly:

In 2012, there were about 13 million in the 15-to-17 year-old demo who will be eligible to vote in 2016. The previous few presidential election cycles indicate that about 45 percent of these youngsters will actually vote, meaning that there will about 6 million new voters total. Exit polling indicates that age bracket has split about 65-35 in favor of the Dems in the past two elections. If that split holds true in 2016, Democrats will have picked up a two million vote advantage among first-time voters. These numbers combined with the voter death data puts Republicans at an almost 2.5 million voter disadvantage going into 2016.

[Padfoot]

Is there comparable data going from any earlier time periods?  The conclusion seems a little too good to be true.

[7,052,770]

I thought I saw a few blue avatars gushing over some exit poll that said Romney won the under-20s. Is that right?

[Ebsy]

George McGovern's Revenge indeed.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The future is Paul!

[YaBoyNY]

I thought I saw a few blue avatars gushing over some exit poll that said Romney won the under-20s. Is that right?

Something like winning 18-29 year old whites like 49-48.

Which is 10 full points worse than their national performance amongst whites.

[Torie]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

[publicunofficial]

Isn't it largely a political myth that people grow more conservative as they age? Why would you start voting Republican AFTER you start getting your entitlements?

[Torie]

Isn't it largely a political myth that people grow more conservative as they age? Why would you start voting Republican AFTER you start getting your entitlements?

I know the claim is debunked, but it has to be true if young voters over the decades have consistently voted more Democratic than older ones. Otherwise, we at the moment would have a one party state. So what we need is data as to how age cohorts voted in each election since say 1932 or since 1952 or whatever, to know one way or the other.

[traininthedistance]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

IIRC the Boomers got more conservative as they aged (aren't they so special!), but every other generation has more or less stayed right where they were when they were young. 

And yes, this has manifested itself in social mores generally bending leftwards over time.  But that relationship doesn't hold on "economic" matters, where youngs have often ended up to the right of their parents.

[windjammer]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

And what happens when you're 64?

[YaBoyNY]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

I think that, other than the Boomers, most generations stay fairly similar in terms of voting habit. Gen X'ers were more conservative at age 20 and 30 then 20 or 30 year old Millennials are now.

[Torie]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

And what happens when you're 64?

I think it fair to say I have become steadily more liberal over the years. I certainly did based on my law school experience. Your mind gets trained to try to evaluate fairly all sides of an issue. Having said that, the changes have not been massive (I have always been relatively moderate within my party), and I have always been more socially than fiscally liberal. But my life experiences have been fairly atypical, including of course not having or raising children.

[Torie]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

I think that, other than the Boomers, most generations stay fairly similar in terms of voting habit. Gen X'ers were more conservative at age 20 and 30 then 20 or 30 year old Millennials are now.

"Fairly similar" is not the same thing as "totally similar."

[YaBoyNY]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

I think that, other than the Boomers, most generations stay fairly similar in terms of voting habit. Gen X'ers were more conservative at age 20 and 30 then 20 or 30 year old Millennials are now.

"Fairly similar" is not the same thing as "totally similar."

Yes, but it's nothing huge like a 10 point difference. If Millennials are, say, 60-40 Democrat now, they'd be closer to 55-45 or 53-47 when they're 65+.

Political party loyalty is something I believe they've linked to being something that sticks with you from when you're younger.

[King]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

I think that, other than the Boomers, most generations stay fairly similar in terms of voting habit. Gen X'ers were more conservative at age 20 and 30 then 20 or 30 year old Millennials are now.

"Fairly similar" is not the same thing as "totally similar."

Yes, but it's nothing huge like a 10 point difference. If Millennials are, say, 60-40 Democrat now, they'd be closer to 55-45 or 53-47 when they're 65+.

Political party loyalty is something I believe they've linked to being something that sticks with you from when you're younger.

Gore also beat Bush in 65+ in 2000. Ford won younger voters in 1976. New Deal kids were New Deal olds. Boomers were rebels against that kind of government and supported the Republicans.

Betting that older people are naturally Republican is a loser strategy.

What will change for the Republicans, is that if Hillary is elected, and maybe re-elected, and hell, maybe even her successor elected, after 16-20 years of rule, the Democrats will be see as unhip and old. The young people will be Republicans again. That's not happening yet because the Republican Party is still outwardly projecting Old People for Old Values.

[The Mikado]

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

Churchill never actually said that, just FYI.

Churchill was also a Conservative at 25, a Liberal at 30, and a Conservative again at 50.

[All Along The Watchtower]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

I think that, other than the Boomers, most generations stay fairly similar in terms of voting habit. Gen X'ers were more conservative at age 20 and 30 then 20 or 30 year old Millennials are now.

"Fairly similar" is not the same thing as "totally similar."

Yes, but it's nothing huge like a 10 point difference. If Millennials are, say, 60-40 Democrat now, they'd be closer to 55-45 or 53-47 when they're 65+.

Political party loyalty is something I believe they've linked to being something that sticks with you from when you're younger.

Gore also beat Bush in 65+ in 2000. Ford won younger voters in 1976. New Deal kids were New Deal olds. Boomers were rebels against that kind of government and supported the Republicans.

Betting that older people are naturally Republican is a loser strategy.

What will change for the Republicans, is that if Hillary is elected, and maybe re-elected, and hell, maybe even her successor elected, after 16-20 years of rule, the Democrats will be see as unhip and old. The young people will be Republicans again. That's not happening yet because the Republican Party is still outwardly projecting Old People for Old Values.

You're forgetting the role of race in the equation. Or the fact that the "GI Generation" went through the Great Depression, while the Boomers went through the 60s and 70s (Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate).

Also, people do tend to become more "conservative" in a dispositional sense as they age, but not politically. What matters is the kinds of political events that occur in the formative years of voters, which would be teenage years and young adulthood. Unless you subscribe to some "cycles" superstition, there simply is no way to predict the relevant events that will occur.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Let's not also forget that the demographic time bomb Republicans face is heavily skewed towards the young. Boomer and the Silent generation are significantly whiter than the population as a whole.

Good luck appealing to the increasingly diverse youth vote with the Republican race baiting and xenophobia.

[SingingAnalyst]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

The results of Presidential elections of 1984, 1988 and 1992 were nearly uniform across all age groups. In 1990, in Congressional elections and the MI governor's race for sure, younger voters were more Republican than older ones.

[YaBoyNY]

Let's not also forget that the demographic time bomb Republicans face is heavily skewed towards the young. Boomer and the Silent generation are significantly whiter than the population as a whole.

Good luck appealing to the increasingly diverse youth vote with the Republican race baiting and xenophobia.

I have no doubt Republicans will eventually adapt. It just won't be in time to break the Democratic hold on the Millennial vote, both in the Democrats absolute dominance over the minority vote and the Democrats better than average performance amongst the white Millennials.

[Padfoot]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

I think that, other than the Boomers, most generations stay fairly similar in terms of voting habit. Gen X'ers were more conservative at age 20 and 30 then 20 or 30 year old Millennials are now.

"Fairly similar" is not the same thing as "totally similar."

Yes, but it's nothing huge like a 10 point difference. If Millennials are, say, 60-40 Democrat now, they'd be closer to 55-45 or 53-47 when they're 65+.

Political party loyalty is something I believe they've linked to being something that sticks with you from when you're younger.

Gore also beat Bush in 65+ in 2000. Ford won younger voters in 1976. New Deal kids were New Deal olds. Boomers were rebels against that kind of government and supported the Republicans.

Betting that older people are naturally Republican is a loser strategy.

What will change for the Republicans, is that if Hillary is elected, and maybe re-elected, and hell, maybe even her successor elected, after 16-20 years of rule, the Democrats will be see as unhip and old. The young people will be Republicans again. That's not happening yet because the Republican Party is still outwardly projecting Old People for Old Values.

You're forgetting the role of race in the equation. Or the fact that the "GI Generation" went through the Great Depression, while the Boomers went through the 60s and 70s (Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate).

Also, people do tend to become more "conservative" in a dispositional sense as they age, but not politically. What matters is the kinds of political events that occur in the formative years of voters, which would be teenage years and young adulthood. Unless you subscribe to some "cycles" superstition, there simply is no way to predict the relevant events that will occur.

This.  And there is data!  http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/partisan-loyalty-begins-at-age-18/

[Ban my account ffs!]

This implicitly assumes that voters do not tend to become more Pub friendly as they age. When was the last POTUS election where young voters voted more Pub than older ones? If there were no evolving of voters over time, by now that nation would be 70% Dem or something, no?

"If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain"

Winston Churchill

Myths and anecdotes might work in the court of law...but they don't work in objective reality.

[Del Tachi]

Did they account for all the 18-34 year old moving into the more GOP-voting 35 to 59 aged cohort?  LOL

Wonderful example of extrapolation gone wrong.