This is a scary map if your a GOP strategist!

[bhouston79]

Below is a composite map of how 18-29 year olds voted in the 2008 election taken from exit polls posted on CNN.com, which can be found at the following link: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1

Arkansas is in grey because it was essentially a 49% to 49% tie among this age demographic.  As you can see it's a very ugly map if you're a Republican strategist looking at the future of the GOP.  Nationally, Obama won 18-29 year olds 66% to 32 %.

[You kip if you want to...]

Below is a composite map of how 18-29 year olds voted in the 2008 election taken from exit polls posted on CNN.com, which can be found at the following link: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1

Arkansas is in grey because it was essentially a 49% to 49% tie among this age demographic.  As you can see it's a very ugly map if you're a Republican strategist looking at the future of the GOP.  Nationally, Obama won 18-29 year olds 66% to 32 %.

What's with Georgia?

[DariusNJ]

18-29 year olds are left leaning. Kerry won them by about 10 points, even though he lost to Bush by 3 points overall.

And remember, young voters tend to get more conservative with age. Barack Obama had a very special appeal among these voters, which is why he won 66% of them nationally. If it was a generic Dem who won the popular vote by 7%, I'd expect the 18-29 year olds to give the Dem about 60%.

One thing about young voters is that are quite liberal on social issues, like gay marriage. If the majority of the GOP doesn't support gay marriage, or atleast civil unions, it will hurt them in the long run.

[tmthforu94]

Young people are generally liberal because college makes them liberal, as most professors are liberal. As they will grow older, more will turn conservative, and I would imagine that this group will be 50/50 by the time they are 55-60 years old.

[Vepres]

Below is a composite map of how 18-29 year olds voted in the 2008 election taken from exit polls posted on CNN.com, which can be found at the following link: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1

Arkansas is in grey because it was essentially a 49% to 49% tie among this age demographic.  As you can see it's a very ugly map if you're a Republican strategist looking at the future of the GOP.  Nationally, Obama won 18-29 year olds 66% to 32 %.

Yeah, I've seen this before. On foreign policy and social issues, the young are more left wing. However, their economic views are very similar to older generations. I suspect with Iraq out of the way and economic issues on the forefront, the youth will be far less Democratic in 2012 (I think those who are 15-18 now will be conservative because the only President they grew up with was Obama, so any flaw will be magnified). I also suspect many only supported and voted for Obama because it was cool, they didn't really look at policy as much.

[Citizen James]

I consider it a myth that people become more liberal with age, at least in absolute terms.   Society becomes more liberal with time, and though people change they don't do so as quickly as society does. 

Very few people support anti-interracial marriage laws any more, though back in the 1940's it would have been considered the norm.

Support for slavery is now limited to a few utter loons, but once was accepted by a large portion of society.

Though I am only one example, I can say quite certainly that I have become more liberal with age.   The rigid, black and white thinking that pervades modern conservatism just doesn't cut it for me anymore - and life experience has made me less judgmental and more tolerant.   (Amusingly, I can see echos of my  past self in some of the young right wing posters)

That said, saner voices will eventually come to power within the GOP, and the equilibrium may even flip over again like it did in the 1960's. 

[pbrower2a]

Below is a composite map of how 18-29 year olds voted in the 2008 election taken from exit polls posted on CNN.com, which can be found at the following link: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p1

Arkansas is in grey because it was essentially a 49% to 49% tie among this age demographic.  As you can see it's a very ugly map if you're a Republican strategist looking at the future of the GOP.  Nationally, Obama won 18-29 year olds 66% to 32 %.

What's with Georgia?

Georgia has lots of large military bases, and the Armed Forces tend to attract persons who already have conservative values.

[Smash255]

Like it has been said by hundreds of other reasonable people before me, the Republican Party isn't just going to sit back and say "oh noooo!!" as their electoral hopes are dashed more and more every day.  Parties change, people change, politics change, etc.

That might be true in some instances, however the GOP is showing zero signs of making any adjustments or changes.

[Smash255]

Young people are generally liberal because college makes them liberal, as most professors are liberal. As they will grow older, more will turn conservative, and I would imagine that this group will be 50/50 by the time they are 55-60 years old.

I think you are overestimating the impact college Professors have on students.  Also you are overestimating voters becoming more conservative as they age.   Those who came of age politically during Reagan and Bush (Gen X and slightly before) have tended to be quite conservative (in comparison) from the start.  They really haven't gotten that much more conservative as time has past, and they are generally more conservative than the boomer generation.  Same his true if you look at the last two generations of seniors.  Those who came of age during the Great Depression and New Deal era (most of which have now passed away) were always quite Democratic, those who came of age after them (they are generally in their late 60's and 70's now) have always been a bit more conservative.

Now I will admit that as a general rule voters tend to be a bit more conservative when they are older, but its not nearly as much as many people tend to think.

[patrick1]

I consider it a myth that people become more liberal with age, at least in absolute terms.   Society becomes more liberal with time, and though people change they don't do so as quickly as society does. 

Very few people support anti-interracial marriage laws any more, though back in the 1940's it would have been considered the norm.

Support for slavery is now limited to a few utter loons, but once was accepted by a large portion of society.

Though I am only one example, I can say quite certainly that I have become more liberal with age.   The rigid, black and white thinking that pervades modern conservatism just doesn't cut it for me anymore - and life experience has made me less judgmental and more tolerant.   (Amusingly, I can see echos of my  past self in some of the young right wing posters)

That said, saner voices will eventually come to power within the GOP, and the equilibrium may even flip over again like it did in the 1960's. 

I believe what you meant to say is that it is a myth that people become more conservative with age.  Fair enough.  However, you go on to say that that society becomes more liberal as time passes.  I don't agree with this march of time and linear view of history.  It may be true on surface in modern western history, however, I think it fails the global and long range view of history.  For instance, Take the current cause celebre of gay rights. homosexuality was tolerated and accepted in many ancient cultures and then persecuted in the West's Middle ages. Gay rights have gained in the west but throughout the world you can still be murdered for the practice.  My point being that history can ebb and flow as can the very definition of being liberal.

[pbrower2a]

18-29 year olds are left leaning. Kerry won them by about 10 points, even though he lost to Bush by 3 points overall.

And remember, young voters tend to get more conservative with age. Barack Obama had a very special appeal among these voters, which is why he won 66% of them nationally. If it was a generic Dem who won the popular vote by 7%, I'd expect the 18-29 year olds to give the Dem about 60%.

One thing about young voters is that are quite liberal on social issues, like gay marriage. If the majority of the GOP doesn't support gay marriage, or at least civil unions, it will hurt them in the long run.

Young voters have typically been more liberal -- or at least libertarian -- than older voters on sexuality. On other issues? It varies greatly.

As people get older they tend to have more of a stake in the status quo; their incomes increase and so do the economic demands upon them (children). Advancement in corporate bureaucracies  -- a norm for adults now 55+, but not so obvious for those under 55 -- depends in part on having the same values as management. Of course, with blue-collar workers one might trust one's union more than the corporate executives, in which one tends to become more liberal-leaning as time passes, and if one works for a government agency, one has an entrenched interest in the expansion of one's bureaucracy. One tends to become more conservative -- or more liberal, depending on one's environment.

What Howe and Strauss call the Millennial Generation (born 1982 until at least 2000) may have seen contemporary politics and economics at their worst. The older generation, Generation X (born 1961-1981) typically remembers the Fall of Communism, the successful overthrow of Manuel Noriega and the liberation of Kuwait. Generation X recognized some certainty in low-paying jobs in malls and restaurants -- jobs that at the least offered the chance to buy up chic clothing and improving electronic goodies at falling prices. Only after they started getting into their 20s did Generation X realize that they were being $crewed -- and they complained about what Big Business was doing to them in the presence of younger people (the Millennial Generation) as mass layoffs solely to cut wage costs (often by shipping manufacturing overseas) put an end to industrial jobs. The Millennial Generation learned even before they entered the workforce that Corporate America was a place of glass ceilings for all but a few and piked pits for most.

Add to that, the Millennial Generation had knowledge of the sleazy era of Bush 43-era politics and economics from first-hand experience, but all else from second-hand knowledge, as from textbooks.  So it was in November 2008. They were old enough to know of the glory-seeking of a President whose "Mission Accomplished" left far too much unsolved. They saw the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. They saw the effects of the subprime lending/ real estate bubble going bust. They knew that inequality in America was intensifying while economic security vanished.  They saw an unusual number of political scandals -- scandals more intense and pervasive than Watergate, thank you. The Civics and American history textbooks told them of Presidents far more coherent in their addresses to the American people and of more prosperous times -- times inconsistent with Dubya. They might have stayed up late on occasion and seen Leno or Letterman lampoon Dubya. Letterman had sketches in which he contrasted FDR's "We have nothing to fear but... Fear itself!" and JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you" to the babbling of recent days from the current President.

So youth born after 1981 had little stake in the preservation of the political or economic status quo while they America had a very conservative Administration and Congress and while Corporate America acted harshly toward anyone not an Insider. That's one way to become liberal. (Conservatives may count their blessings; if America had a latent Socialist movement, then it might have expanded rapidly in recent years!) If there was anything good in American history it was in something much unlike the Bush administration and in business executives being paid very well for treating people very badly.

Americans, but especially young Americans, wanted change -- and they got its prospect in the Presidential candidate most unlike Dubya.


  

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Yeah, but here's the map for 1976:

[pbrower2a]

Young people are generally liberal because college makes them liberal, as most professors are liberal. As they will grow older, more will turn conservative, and I would imagine that this group will be 50/50 by the time they are 55-60 years old.

College isn't the only influence upon youth,  Most kids either don't attend college, take a vocational-technical program that offers little exposure to the great political and economic debates, or drop out early. High school teachers may have more influence upon such youth who don't get extensive educations -- and don't forget mass culture.

Youth can either endorse the status quo because it offers much while requiring little (think of the 1960-era movie musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying  that now seems a sick joke because now everyone seems concerned more in survival than in getting ahead) or reject it. In the 1950s and early 1960s people really did trust business hierarchies; they don't now. In recent years young Americans have much to dread about Big Business and right-wing politicians who are their flunkies. Maybe such is the difference between Eisenhower-era conservatives who believed that the little man had to have faith in the system if the system were to survive and Dubya-era right-wingers who have tried to make Big Business as independent of the workforce as possible.

If you have ever seen the visionary 1926 (!) film Metropolis, then you get a fair idea of a dysfunctional society in which workers are expendable and those at the social apex live like irresponsible aristocrats.  Does that sound familiar?

[minionofmidas]

Like it has been said by hundreds of other reasonable people before me, the Republican Party isn't just going to sit back and say "oh noooo!!" as their electoral hopes are dashed more and more every day.  Parties change, people change, politics change, etc.

Which would be good enough for me... and bad enough for the careers of the people currently running the GOP.

[Verily]

Young people are generally liberal because college makes them liberal, as most professors are liberal. As they will grow older, more will turn conservative, and I would imagine that this group will be 50/50 by the time they are 55-60 years old.

Not really true at all. Gore only won the 18-29 demographic by two points while winning the national PV by about half a point. Clinton actually did better among voters older than 29 than he did among 18-29 year-olds in 1992 (although the reverse was true in 1996, probably because Dole was a doddering old man).

[Nym90]

Reagan won the youth vote very solidly in 1984, I believe by more than he won seniors or any other demographic (feel free to cite exit polls proving my wrong as my memory is going on me in my old age).

[Smash255]

Reagan won the youth vote very solidly in 1984, I believe by more than he won seniors or any other demographic (feel free to cite exit polls proving my wrong as my memory is going on me in my old age).

Pretty sure you are right or at least close to it.  Reagan did quite well with the youth vote in 84, and that group (now in their 40's and early 50's) has remained quite Republican.

btw hilarious sig.

[Vepres]

The thing most Democrats and left-leaners on this forum seem to forget is that demographic trends don't last forever. About 100 years ago, Republicans had the lock on the black vote while the Democrats had southern social conservatives.

[War on Want]

The thing most Democrats and left-leaners on this forum seem to forget is that demographic trends don't last forever. About 100 years ago, Republicans had the lock on the black vote while the Democrats had southern social conservatives.

I really haven't seen anyone argue that this will last forever.

[bgwah]

I don't find it difficult to believe. Generation Y is a Democratic one. I suspect the next generation will be a Republican one.

[Vepres]

The thing most Democrats and left-leaners on this forum seem to forget is that demographic trends don't last forever. About 100 years ago, Republicans had the lock on the black vote while the Democrats had southern social conservatives.

I really haven't seen anyone argue that this will last forever.

No, but they think it will last for a decade or two, which is possible but not probable. The trends of certain demographics can rapidly change.

[War on Want]

The thing most Democrats and left-leaners on this forum seem to forget is that demographic trends don't last forever. About 100 years ago, Republicans had the lock on the black vote while the Democrats had southern social conservatives.

I really haven't seen anyone argue that this will last forever.

No, but they think it will last for a decade or two, which is possible but not probable. The trends of certain demographics can rapidly change.

With some groups it makes sense for a decade or two.

[Vepres]

The thing most Democrats and left-leaners on this forum seem to forget is that demographic trends don't last forever. About 100 years ago, Republicans had the lock on the black vote while the Democrats had southern social conservatives.

I really haven't seen anyone argue that this will last forever.

No, but they think it will last for a decade or two, which is possible but not probable. The trends of certain demographics can rapidly change.

With some groups it makes sense for a decade or two.

I'm just saying, some state like it's inevitable, which it's not.

[Phony Moderate]

Society is becoming more liberal, or at least on social issues, and it's got nothing to do with college "making" kids liberal. Support for same-sex marriage is now around 40%, ten years ago it was in the late 20's to early 30's. There was a Gallup Poll in 1977 asking if homosexuals should have the same job rights as everyone else, 56% said yes, 33% said no. Now, 89% say yes, and 8% say no. 63% say Affirmative Action programs are needed now, compared to 50% in 1995. 36% support the legalization of marijuana today, compared to 27% in 1979.

[aaaa2222]

Society is becoming more liberal, or at least on social issues, and it's got nothing to do with college "making" kids liberal. Support for same-sex marriage is now around 40%, ten years ago it was in the late 20's to early 30's. There was a Gallup Poll in 1977 asking if homosexuals should have the same job rights as everyone else, 56% said yes, 33% said no. Now, 89% say yes, and 8% say no. 63% say Affirmative Action programs are needed now, compared to 50% in 1995. 36% support the legalization of marijuana today, compared to 27% in 1979.

I oppose affirmative action; simply because incentives to hire minorities are not needed in today's liberal society, instead the most qualified worker should be hired, regardless of ethnic background. They were, however needed in the 60s and 70s where racism was more common.