How does the GOP win young voters once baby boomers and gen-x are gone?

[Virginiá]

There is probably no reasonable way to answer that question. We have no way of knowing what the values/views of young people will be in 30-40 years. Look how different the Millennial generation is from their parents.

[Virginiá]

That is some, albeit scant, evidence. 18-20 year olds are probably more like their (more Republican) parents than 23-24 year olds. Back in 1972, while McGovern won college students overall, he lost freshmen 56%-40%. Reagan was swept into office in 1980 with only 41% support from voters under 30 (Carter had 47%). Four years later, however, Reagan won 18-29 year olds with 60%. It will take someone who communicates well and gets results.

This is what I've been thinking about. Obama did lose the very youngest in 2012 by somewhat decent margins, but he had 2 major issues that enabled that:

• Passed PPACA during an economic crisis instead of putting all his political capital into economic-related proposals (labor laws, infrastructure investment, etc). Aside from the stimulus, Democrats wasted the massive amount of power they had and later paid for it, as they essentially handed Republicans a powerful tool to beat them with for the next 6 years
• No matter what, without a nearly instantaneous recovery, Obama/Democrats were always going to get hit in 2010/2012, as the recession began in earnest after Obama took office, so a lot of blame went to them.

However, this doesn't mean that those 18-20 year olds will always have that little support of Democrats. The problem facing Republicans with Millennials and possibly GenY/Z/whatever is that even with less effective or unappealing Democratic presidential candidates, it doesn't change the fact that the GOP platform is not something that really appeals to Millennials the same way the Democratic platform does. As long as it remains this way, Democrats will almost always do well with this generation and will have more opportunities to win back any Millennials that voted against them, such as in 2012/2014.

It's kind of similar to Nixon-Reagan era, where Nixon did turn off a lot of young people with his hijinks, but that didn't drive future young people away forever, despite how badly Nixon tarnished the Republican brand. Reagan came along and eventually locked in their support for a long time. That was because those kids grew up with ideals that simply were not in line with the Democratic party of that era. An example now might be that even if Clinton won and got lackluster approval/votes from the youngest voters, that doesn't mean Republicans are favored from then on. Kind of like how some young adults love Sanders right now, despite voting against Obama in 2012.

TL;DR Republicans need to reformulate their agenda in a way that actually appeals broadly to young people, instead of once again focusing almost solely on their older white voters (as they have for so many years)

[Virginiá]

Did Obama lose the youngest voters? I thought he won them 60-37. He did however lose white youth to Romney, but only 49-48.

Any GOP candidate that wants to turn back the clock on same-sex marriage (think Ted Cruz) is doomed among young voters. The GOP will have to face reality on this issue, just as they did once upon a time with social security, among other issues.

As a whole, yes, Obama won Millennials overwhelmingly. However, in 2012, due to the factors I listed, he did lose the very youngest voters, 18 - 20 year olds. 18yr olds: 57% Romney, 19yr: 59%, 20yr: 54%.

However, as I was saying, their support for Romney won't necessarily translate into Republican-leanings for life, unless they keep voting that way for the next 5-10 years. How the Republican party behaves, what their agenda is, and how well the next 1-2 presidents perform will likely determine their leanings. Though, I think it's safe to say that at least 18 and 19 year olds who came of age in 2011/2012 will be less Democratic than kids who came of age in 2006-2009.

Not sure which of the links in this WP story about this have those results, but it's in there somewhere:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/10/democrats-have-a-young-people-problem-too/

[Virginiá]

Minorities, and young people, will vote for Republican politicians who have earned their vote. Looking back, Gov. Milliken (R-MI) went from about 9% of the Black Detroit vote in 1974 to about 25% in 1978. How? By listening. Today's GOP can do the same thing with minorities and the young, but it will take more than strident criticism of the welfare state and popular culture, two stands that have alienated the GOP from these groups.

You're right, but the party needs to change in response to what they are listening to as well. They can't just change the way they convey their message, which will help them but would be limited. There are policy issues at play here as well. Repackaging the same ideas only takes you so far, as the Democrats learned in the 70s/80s/90s.

[Virginiá]

I think the older Generation then switches more to the GOP. Younger people are always/in most cases more liberal.

Not really. Older people now are more conservative because the times they grew up in were led by successful conservative leaders. People were grew up under FDR voted more Democratic their entire life, and kids who were up under Clinton's 2nd term and Bush/Obama have already been voting consistently more Democratic. The Silent Generation under Eisenhower has always been more conservative. People who grew up under Reagan have always voted more heavily Republican. Even Reagan got upwards of 60% of the youth vote in 1984.

http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/section-1-how-generations-have-changed/
http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/section-2-generations-and-the-2012-election/

Simply put, maybe it seems like people "turn conservative" as they age, but if this was the 1950s, people would be saying the youth is "always more Republican" and that when they age, they turn "more liberal", because a bulk of the older people were Democratic and a lot were New Dealers.

[Virginiá]

There has been research that once generation votes for the same party 3 times in a row, they lock-in their support to that party for the rest of their lives (barring massive wave elections).

Yes, though I don't think it is as static as that. 3 times in a row I think is only said because it reflects a long period of time. If we're talking 3 presidential elections, that's 12 years, and if all elections, it's 6 years. If a person finds common ground for 12 years with the same party during their formative years, then they are likely to stick with them.

The reason I think that it is mentioned is that young adults political positions are more malleable through their teens/20s. The older a young adult gets, the less likely they are to change their views on certain things or their allegiance to their party. So when a person votes 3 times for the same party, it's a validation tested by time that they see that party as best representing them, given the current choices. Eventually that comes to stick as people do sort of get stuck in their ways. This same dynamic applies to a lot of other things.

However, it's not impossible to break this cycle. Major events (Great Depression, for instance) can reset this behavior and rapidly change party allegiances. These types of situations are far rarer though.