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

[SingingAnalyst]

There is some evidence that Millenials born in the mid-1990s are far less Democratic than those born in the 1980s and early 1990s.

This poll is nearly 2 years old, but it does reflect that voters born after 1991 will not have the best memories of the GWB Presidency and 2008 election (going along with the "Who was President when you were 18?" thing) are probably returning to normalcy in terms of partisan identification.

Of course, a lot has changed since April of 2014.

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.

[SingingAnalyst]

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)

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.

[SingingAnalyst]

Our biggest problem is that we're not used to talking to young people.  It's just a matter of getting out there and speaking to them in ways they can understand.  The same could be said about minorities, but would take more work. In our favor is that young voters under 25 don't vote in very impressive numbers.

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.

[SingingAnalyst]

1. They have to at least be more centrist on social issues. A significant amount of young republicans support gay marriage. This seems to be the big one, but I think becoming more pot friendly and less world police-like will help as well.

2. At least try to appeal to minorities? This has to be a no brainer. With the population becoming more diverse, the GOP won't be winning much if it's not open to others.

Overall, they will need to become more moderate. If the dems keep going to the left and if the GOP goes more towards the middle they could present themselves as the party of reason.

While interesting to talk about, I always thought the generation groups expand too many years to really get a good general sense of how a generation votes. Young millennials grew up in a completely different setting from older members of the group. Personally, I consider Clinton my childhood years, Bush my teen years (9/11 shaped my outlook on so many things that younger kids didn't experience because they were too young) and Obama my young adult years.
 

indietraveler, do you think Trump is helping or hurting the image of the GOP in your age group? Or is it hard to say?