Talk Elections

Lots of Republicans have claimed this. Strikes me as very wishful thinking.

Obviously some will, unless you're one of those people that think Democrats will have a permanent majority in a few decades.

It's possible, yes, especially if you consider that the ideologies/coalitions of the two major parties could change dramatically in the next few decades.

I think it's likely- not because of the theory that people get more conservative as they age, but because the Republican platform will evolve to become more palatable to millennials.

Now I'm 35. Do you believe that a bunch of people of my age, who were leftists and not so moderate in their university years, now are on the Vox train? No particular gap between being male or female...wht do they have in common? A long period of unemployment and/or being trapped in one gig job after another one. Not sure anyway if the same thing could work in America, I guess it depends on the single place.

Yes, because political parties in America always adjust to be 50/50 and it's unclear to me that the Republican Party has other places it can improve besides this demographic, but this will have the effect of changing the party rather than changing white Millennials' political opinions.


I think the perception that people get more conservative as they age is a false one, but I do think there's a real phenomenon where the later in life people experience their political awakening, the more right-wing they tend to be. I'd imagine people voting for the first time coming out for Podemos are on the younger side, and people voting for the first time coming out for Vox are probably older. (Because it is unusual for people to depoliticize -- for most people, once they start voting, they keep doing it -- this explains why older people have turnout so much higher than young people, and why it seems like people get more conservative without observing many concrete examples of this.)

If the Republican Party decides to become more like the conservative parties of Europe and Canada by embracing universal health care, accepting the scientific consensus on climate change, etc., this might happen.

The way any change would happen is if a large amount of non-voters became voters. That's probably the only way that Trump won and perhaps how Obama won.

Yes, because their student loan debt will magically disappear, as parents they'll magically figure out how to work two demanding jobs with no work/life balance while raising children, they'll magically find affordable healthcare options, and it turns out that 98% of the worlds climate scientists were really stooges of the socialist new world order after all.

I think one thing that makes it unlikely for there to be a significant shift of Millennials' political stance is how obnoxious the prominent conservative Millennials (Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens) seem to progressives.  Ben Shapiro might also be thrown into this category, but I see some humanity in him.

Did white Xers, Boomers, Silenters, and GIs become more Repbulican as they aged?

I would link to this post I did some time ago which argues that there already has been a shift, and it may continue, to put it simply if you look at the exit polls, whites aged 30-44 which represent the late Gen X and 1st half of Millennials up to 1986 voted R+17 in 2016. That is a significant shift compared to how those voters were voting relative to the nation a decade ago.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=275462.msg5873981#msg5873981

Yes, because the Republican Party of the middle age Millennial generation will be different from the Republican Party of 2020.

Yes neither party will resemble today's parties after 2028/2032. The only question is will the GOP be proactive in making changes or will it have to be forced on to them after 8-12 years in the political wilderness. I hope its the former and not the latter

One can dream.

The GOP will probably need a Texas-sized wake-up call. OTOH, Trump may represent the death of the GOP as we currently know it. The logical conclusion of the social-wedge, white anger sugar high they've been on for decades now.

I have no idea, and I don't think anybody can reasonably say otherwise. Obviously, the coalitions will shift as demographics change, and parties adjust to hit 50/50, but as things stand, there is no indication white millenials will shift to the GOP over the next few cycles. When things eventually shift, it could be them, or Latinos, or blacks, or younger generations still, which shift towards the GOP. In the world of the demographic future, to remain competitive, the GOP must change its platform so much we can't realistically predict who its supporter base will be, other than that it will be very unlike the current GOP coalition. Of course, we could have DEM blowouts until the 2030s until the GOP is forced to shift their platform, in which case millennials will be in their 40s and voting just as DEM as today.

If I were to wildly speculate, I would predict some sort of Josh Hawley-Marin LePen esque GOP with Doug Fordian appeal to some minority groups, and white millennials split along geographic and socioeconomic lines with a En Marchey Democratic party, but that doesn't mean I think it will happen.

Parties have done that throughout history though with most recent being the Democrats in 1992 though it did take 3 consecutive landslide defeats for that to happen

Exactly. And I expect the GOP to go through a similar process, my point being that it's very difficult to envision what the end product is.

I think 2 defeats could be enough though, 1988 the Dems would have won if the economic and foreign affairs wasnt so titled against them and if Gary Hart never had the scandal.  Fundamentals along with the "New Democrat" candidate going down in flamed due to scandal which lead to Dukakis being the nominee is what gave the GOP a third straight landslide. 


Heck in today's age maybe even 1 might be enough, Republicans have governors who are kinda of different like Hogan and DeSantis. DeSantis, for example, has been pretty positive for a Republican on environmental issues and Hogan is more liberal on social issues. So say in 2020 you get a President Warren who goes full populist left and then in 2024 Pence is defeated for the nomination by Hogan, DeSantis then you can get a pretty new GOP.

Political cycles change a lot faster now days then back in the day as whoever leads the tickets basically totally runs the party for the election cylce, or if they win 4 years or 8 years. Back in the day Congressional Leaders, State Leaders had far far more power so making fundamental changes was more difficult.

More Republican than now obviously, but it won't be anywhere near the extent that the "you get more right-wing as you age" people seem to think (Fun fact: Obama won the 85+ vote in 2012, because those people were the Democratic GIs).

What would be the inverse of this scenario... I'm taking the original conjecture to a new point- what if the Democrats moderate and a lot liberal voters stop showing up?

Eisenhower both times  , Nixon in 72 and Reagan both times I believe won the GI vote

If Republicans don’t adapt they will lose anyway . The only question is will they be forced to adapt by Election defeats or will they proactively adapt

What I am talking is if Democrats to LOSE TO TRUMP is if they will see that and "adapt" or if they will have to lose another to "adapt" or if they just double down and eventually win like they did with Bush even when they couldn't beat Bush (much in the way the GOP dealt with Obama).

If they lose to Trump whoever is the loser put that wing of the party at a disadvantage in 2024. Anyway I think if Dems lose in 2020,the 46th President will be Gretchen Whitmer

Does Gretchen want it? Is she just a good administrator or is she a capable leader as well?

No idea, just saying it as she would then be a two term governor of a battleground state and she seems pretty popular among all wins of the party

President Vilsack says hello?

Michigan is much bigger than Iowa and there is no establishment candidate equal to Hillary in 2024.  The 2024 field will mainly come from winners from 2018 and Dems didnt have that many in the Senate and from the Gubernatorial winners Whitmer, Newsom and Polis seem to be the only ones who can go National.

Obviously, unless you expect the GOP to be a minority party for 20-30 years some time during this century.

Both parties were last century.

And of course President Rubio says hello. :)

I really think that if they are still struggling downballot after 2022, that the Democratic Party will either go in a slightly different and perhaps even more aggressive direction to attract "missing voters" or will try to do a "Bill Clinton 2.0" to win back some Trump Democrats. Maybe something like what Trump offers but more emphasis on unions, social security, and healthcare while not pandering to the Religious Right and not offending minorities. I could see someone like Gabbard become the next D president if Trump wins in 2020 and the Democrats still struggle at the state and local level, even if they hold Congress.

I could see them doubling down and look to keep on Obama's path forward even if they lose this year if they totally own 2022.

That depends. Is there another "traditional family values" issue about which, currently, liberals and conservatives mutually agree on, but in the future liberals will change their mind about it, and accuse conservatives of being bigoted for not changing their minds as well?

Those were both significant events in which the Dems and GOP lost large chunks of their base. Its not comparable to the gradual decline of Republican favored demographics we see now.

1932 and 1980 were actually a long time coming.

Children acting like Baby Boomers when growing up. Millennial adults have little familiarity with Boom behavior in the 1960's and 1970's and will have little idea of what went wrong. Millennial adults are rather bland in their cultural expressions, so we have an oil-and-water non-mix to deal with. 

 

Only marginally, though I could see white Millennial men, particularly those without college degrees, becoming noticeably more Republican.

Landslides. Essentially meaningless for this analysis.

Didn’t the GI, Silent, Boomer, and Xer generations all get more Republican as they aged into middle aged adults and later into their elderly years?

I don't expect this will happen among those who are already voting (D-to-R shifts as people age are completely overblown at best and outright nonsense at worst - especially in today's climate), but as more currently non-voting white Millennials begin to participate, it's certainly a possibility given the trajectory of our political system. This is also likely what happened with previous generations with regard to the relatively tiny amount of evidence there is to suggest people "become more conservative with age", mind you.

There's nothing cool or trendy about being a conservative in today's youth climate and so only the sands of time convincing select groups to participate based on self-interest (racially, at least at this point) will have any beneficial impact for the GOP among Millennials - and if the current era proves to be an aberration, say goodbye to even that hope for the GOP.

Nevertheless, it wouldn't surprise me if these developments led to a return to the old ways in how Democrats actually benefited from low turnout in midterms and the like in a few decades, as those who didn't care to vote when they were in their 20s and 30s are never going to be the epitome of reliable voters; will be fun to suck on my tobacco pipe in old age and hear the GOP b[inks]h about voter suppression and low turnout!

That's probably what the GOP will do as their vote becomes more and more boxed into less developed areas. It would be pretty easier to suppress their vote at that point, especially when there is a budget shortfall during a recession or early recovery. There could talks of consolidating precincts in rural areas to save money and avoid redundancies the way businesses had to fire their extra workers.

It's difficult to say if Eisenhower won the GI vote or not in 1952, because the youngest ones were still in the under-30 category that year. He clearly did win a majority in 1956 though.

Only Silents really became more Republican with age, and when you consider their midage was the counterculture, the Vietnam War, the Carter disaster, and then the Reagan credit boom, it's no wonder they became more Republican. They got even more so under Obama for both obvious and forgotten reasons.

GI's stayed about the same except in landslides, Boomers have always been intensely divided between the parties, and Xers have a big split because those who came to age under Reagan and those who did under Clinton.

Probably, this is the data we have going back to the 1990's from the exit polls.

Voters aged 18-29 in 1996 born in 1967-1978 so the core of the Gen X generation voted for Clinton by 19%, around 11% more democratic than the country. In 2016 the same voters aged 38-50 voted Republican by around 2%, shifting 21% more Republican overall and trending 15% more Republican over time.

We even have data on how early millennial's have changed as they have aged now and are now in their 30's. In 2008 voters aged 25-29, born in 1979-1983 so the early part of the millennial generation voted for the democratic candidate by 35%, 28% more democratic than the nation.

8 years later these voters were aged 33-37 and according to the 2016 exit polls voters aged 30-39 voted for the democratic candidate by 12%, voters aged 33-37 likely voted in line with these figures and so they shifted 23% towards the Republican party and 18% towards the GOP relative to the popular vote.

Since white millennial's are a significant part of all millennial's, it's pretty clear that older white millennial's have already shifted lot more Republican than they were when they started voting in 2008 in big numbers.

As for younger millennial's, its a more interesting question, voters aged 18-24 did vote for Obama by 34% in 2008, these voters were aged 26-32 in the 2016, 25-29 year old voters voted for Clinton by 16%, so that's a 18% shift towards the GOP and a 13% trend overall. Voters aged 30-32 likely voted for Clinton by around 13%, I'm assuming they were a bit more democratic than voters in their late 30's so they shifted 21% more Republican and trended 16% more Republican.

Griff's argument that current non-voters joining the electorate later in life will probably bring more balance to the electorate for Republicans of the future sounds pretty reasonable.

I think if Democrats lose any Millennials later in life, it would be mostly due to them currently have such a large majority with that demographic already. When you're regularly pulling in 60 - 67% of the 18-29 vote, you're bound to lose some of them eventually, considering not all of them were ever "locked in" to the party to begin with. So a noticeable shift to the Republicans would be far more likely due to Democrats being "too successful" than any "people get more conservative as they age" BS theory.

If we use 1996 and 2008 as proof of "Republican aging," then we would have to say that 1984 is proof that the youngest Boomers and first-wave Gen Xers became more Democratic as they entered middle age.

You have to normalise for the national shift as well, I pointed out the trends relative to the national vote shift as well.

According to the exit polls, Reagan carried 18-29 year old voters by 18% in 1984, he won nationally by 18.2% so they basically voted like the country. Reagan's best age group in 1984 were voters over the age of 65 who voted for him by 28%, for some reason people have this weird belief Reagan did better with younger voters than older voters, he didn't.

Voters who were 18-29 in 1984 were 30-41 in 1996 and 30-44 year old voters in 1996 voted for Clinton by 7% whilst he won nationally by 8.5%. So 18-29 year old voters did not really trend democratic from 1984-1996 like you are claiming, they basically stayed constant relative to the national shift.

So there really wasn't much of a shift at all. At this point I am more convinced that voters change their mind not because they are older but because either people start paying attention when they didn't before or that they are a slave to the conditions they entered adulthood in.

I think what changes voters’ habits over time are party realignments, it’s parties shifting their positions over time that causes changes in voting patterns, if party positions stayed constant I believe voters would vote the same way their whole life.

Which raises the questions of how and why coalitions and issues changes.

There’s some interplay between party elites and their voters that cause issues to change over time, it’s the negotiation between party elites and voters via the process of primaries for example that causes coalitions to change over time. 

 I don't know about "more Republican", but they MAY start to realize that some of the ridiculous social values and economic wants (i.e. free everything) isn't feasible.  We may actually "grow up".

Yeah, pretty much this. I think it's likely that millennials will become more Republican, but it will be a matter of Republicans adapting their views to millennials rather than the other way around.

However, I would disagree that the parties always adjust to be in parity. We've seen plenty of periods of long-term (~30 years) political dominance, and there's a totally plausible scenario where Republicans become the clearly weaker party in the country (at least outside of the Senate).

They will become more conservative, as a whole, as time passes. Incividual exceptions will be among those who have stakes in left-trending interests... but

(1) conservatives who have a stake in the economic status quo as property-owners and earners of high incomes are more likely to survive into old age due to better medical care and more will to live

(2) institutional change (mostly a likely breakdown of the economic elitism of the Reagan-to-Trump years) is likely to make life better and give Millennial adults less cause for hostility toward investors and executives

(3) Millennial adults in middle age are likely to find themselves in cultural clashes with young adults as was the case between GI adults and Baby Boomers. Such is grist for reactionary causes that exploit fears and anxieties among middle-aged people who can't understand how their kids could not be chips off the old block.

Note well that the GI Generation often grew up in hardscrabble conditions in contrast to those of younger adults since born... and such caused the GI generation to cleave toward an insipid culture.     

Boomers did. So will Millennials.

Gen Xers didn't, but then again we (at least the white boys) were already to the right of Attila the Hun by the time we were 14.

People changing party affiliation as they age is largely a myth.....

Yes, but it will be because the Republican party will become more Millennial, not the other way round.

What causes younger voters to grow more conservative as they age is either increase in income/wealth and/or having children. Incomes and wealth relative to baby boomers is lower on an inflation adjusted basis. Also millennials are far less likely to get married or have children. As a millennial, anecdotally the ones who are getting more financially successful and buying homes have moved hard to the right while those who are single and in lower/middle income jobs are shifting yo Bernie/AOC crowd versus previously being moderate Dems.

Being poor and single means greater loyalty to left as they have no skin in the game to preserve a free market economy. Unless economic formation or marriage rates accelerate millennials will not trend Republican. In fact they may get further left as they give up hope of ever being traditionally successful.

Only Silents really became more Republican with age, and when you consider their midage was the counterculture, the Vietnam War, the Carter disaster, and then the Reagan credit boom, it's no wonder they became more Republican. They got even more so under Obama for both obvious and forgotten reasons.

GI's stayed about the same except in landslides, Boomers have always been intensely divided between the parties, and Xers have a big split because those who came to age under Reagan and those who did under Clinton.

This. As a "middle" millennial I have now lived through the Bush fiasco in 2004-2008, "American Idiot", afraid of being drafted, the 2008 crash, searching for work for years, having multiple degrees but not really "launching" until 2016, making small bucks, living through the madness of the Trump era, the absolute insanity of the far-right. I have not lost a job/ been furloughed like thousands of my generation as Trump and his North-Koreaesque enablers nod and spout platitudes.

I have an apartment when my parents and grandparents had houses and financial stability. I will inherit large in the future but I am a Democrat for life. I will NEVER vote for the madness of the party of Trump, Neocons, religious wackjobs, privatize the profits and socialize the losses.

I think Millennials are going to be the strongest Democratic faction since the Greatest, who lived through similar shocks, that, surprise, surprise, it took Democrats to fix.

Boomers are pretty much the only generation that's happened with though. The Silent Generation always leaned conservative, and the GI Generation was always Democratic: in fact, back in the 80s, Midterms leaned Democratic because the FDR/New Deal Dems were still around and still voting Democratic, though by then they were senior voters, who as always had higher, more reliable turnout, and I remember seniors being talked about as a Democratic voting bloc as late as the 2000 election.

Right. The thing people don't get is generations are big.

The oldest boomers fought for integration, listened to folk music, and literally transformed through eh transition from the folk era to the hippy movement to the back to the land, to the counterculture being almost mainstreamed through music and fashion.

The youngest boomers came out of high school with Reagan, the optimism of the 80's. Think Alex P. Keaton. Not a surprise that boomers are 50/50...and have only gotten SLIGHTLY more conservative over time.

Differences are already baked in.

This makes no sense. What is this supposed to mean?

You're a starving, landless peasant. You going to stand in front of Versailles and defend Marie Antoinette? Not that hard to understand...

If the GOP continues to be so far to the right on social issues, no. Otherwise, quite possibly yes.