Some astonishing statistics on the "youth vote" and how the GOP is so over.

[Hamlette]

Young voters are not as reflexively Democratic or liberal as many people might think. Since 18-year-olds were granted the vote in 1972, younger voters have often tracked fairly close to the national trend in presidential elections: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush carried them in 1984 and 1988, and they split almost evenly between Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000.

But over the past three elections, voters under 30 have moved steadily toward the Democrats. In the 2004 presidential race, John Kerry carried 54% of them, compared to only 48% of the country overall. In 2006, Democrats won 60% of voters under 30 in the mid-term House elections, according to the national exit poll. Then in 2008, the bottom fell out for Republicans: against John McCain, Obama won a stunning 66% of voters 18-29. Partially Obama ran so well among young people because so many of them are non-white, and he dominated among non-whites at every age. But the exit polls found Obama also won 54% of white voters under 29; even the younger Bush carried 55% of whites under 30 in each of his two elections.

The enormous advantage among young people for Obama in particular and Democrats in general matters for two reasons. The more immediate is that this generation, which is generally defined as the 93 million people born between 1983 and 2002, will comprise a rapidly increasing share of voters through the next decade. Hais and his co-author, Morley Winograd, also an NDN fellow, have calculated that in 2008, 41% of Millennials were eligible to vote, and they constituted 17% of the electorate. They project that by 2012, 61% of the Millennials will be eligible, and they’ll comprise 24% of the electorate; by 2016, the numbers will reach 80% and 30%. By 2020, virtually all of them will be eligible and they could constitute as much as 36% of all voters. If Obama maintains anything near his current strength among Millennials, they will produce a substantially larger vote surplus for him in 2012 than they did in 2008-leaving Republicans a larger deficit to overcome with older voters.

Obama’s strength among young people has a second, even more significant, implication: if Republicans cannot reverse it reasonably soon, it could harden into a lasting preference for Democrats in this huge
generation….

<.....>

Winograd and Hais believe Republicans can’t do much to detach young voters from Obama if the president is seen as succeeding. In Millennial Makeover, they argue that many of this generation’s formative experiences-their diversity, their tolerance of difference, and the patterns of parenting that inclined them to find collective “win-win” solutions-already inclined them toward Democratic beliefs.

[Raster]

1. God/Goddess bless the youth of this country! May they see-and correct-the errors of our ways.

[pnwmom]

2. This is also why gay marriage is inevitable. Young people support it. n/t

[Champion Jack]

3. Nice! Where did you find these stats?

[Hamlette]

8. my bad, forgot the link, here it is

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/05/his_crowd.php

I found it via balloon-juice, my favorite blog

[Canuckistanian]

4. Young voters are paying attention to the Daily Show and Colbert

And they're quickly learning that the MSM is NOT a reliable source of information, so they're turning to blogs and social networks to find out what's REALLY going on.

It's quite encouraging.

[Arugula Latte]

11. Two of my nieces (ages 19 and 22) are SO clued in.

They are light years ahead of where I was at their age in terms of understanding politics, propaganda and the way things are run in this country. The Internet and the Daily Show, etc. play a big role in that. Not surprisingly, they are super liberal.

[grantcart]

5. The supreme irony of this is that by going crazy on the Gay issue the Republicans

are driving young people either to Democrats or Libertarians.


Young people, including conservatives, just don't share the prejudice against gays.

[jillan]

6. My daughter is 19 and ALL of her friends are democrats, even the ones

whose parents are die-hard repugs.

Face it, the repugs cater to middle aged white guys.
The majority of today's youth doesn't look at the world that way.
Their friends come from all backgrounds, they don't care about the color of someone's skin, they don't care if someone in glbt...all the rw talking points mean nothing to them.

[Jennicut]

7. The younger generations grew up with Bush and it left a major impact on them.

I am slightly older at 33, I grew up with Clinton. We in Gen X are much more split.

[Hamlette]

9. The average Rush listener is in his 60s

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/05/rush-limbaugh200905?currentPage=2

and from balloon-juice

More and more, I think that hating on gays, immigrants, and non-French’s mustard is a killer for Republicans. People under 30 just don’t want to be associated with that, for the most part, even if they agree with some of the Republican economic kookiness. Jon Hunstman is certainly smart to move to a more liberal position on gay marriage. But I think this may go even deeper than that.

In 2004, one Democratic candidate really energized younger voters: Howard Dean. The Democratic made him chair of the DNC. IN 2008, one Republican candidate really energized younger voters: Ron Paul. The Republican party treats him like a pariah. Yes, Paul is an anti-Semite whose economic ideas, if implemented, would lead to a second Great Depression or worse. But he’s certainly no crazier than most House Republicans. There’s got to be some way for the Republican party to tap into the energy and fundraising prowess of the Paultards.

Much has been made of the fact for the past week, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh dominated the air waves. This has been described (correctly) as a public relations fiasco for Republicans. Newt’s a relic from another era and the average Rush listener is in his 60s. What’s easy to forget is that when Rush first came on the scene, he was seen as a bit hip and edgy with his Pretenders’ theme song and what not. There was a whole rock n’ roll Republican thing going there for a while, with Bill Bennett’s supposed date with Janis Joplin and Lee Atwater’s blues stylings. It was a far cry from “Let the Eagle Soar.”

snark

[uponit7771]

17. like whoa!

[harry_pothead]

25. Rush is the best Republican

that the Deomcrats ever had.

[Orsino]

10. The Democratic Party has moved right on key points, coopting the GOP's stances.

There was a grain of truth in Nader's "not a dime's worth of difference" charge. The nation isn't seeing a rebirth of liberal values, exactly. It may simply be running from the outright fascism that ran the Republicans.

The corporations that own the media and our elected representatives, though, will ensure that in the long run their control over us will increase. Today's Democratic leaders are riding that trend, not bucking it.

[Hamlette]

12. as much as I lament that, maybe it was brilliant in the long run

it made the GOP go so far to the right they sound/are nuts.

[BlooInBloo]

15. " There was a grain of truth in Nader's "not a dime's worth of difference" charge."...

Pure, unmitigated bullshit.

Fuck Nader, fuck Nader voters.

[Orsino]

19. Not pure bullshit. Just partly.

That Nader said it has nothing to do with the problem. The solution probably won't have much to do with Nader, either.

That grain of truth is just true enough to make us all uncomfortable.

[BlooInBloo]

13. Kids who grew up with bush as President will never vote republican.

More or less.

[Joe the Liberal]

21. I know I won't........

I believe I was about 12 when Bush stole the election in 2000. I started to become "politically aware" sometime after the 2004 elections and saw how badly Bush and the republicans had screwed this country over. Needless to say I won't ever in my life vote republican, not even if the Democrats mess up big time even then I think I would vote for some third party over the republicans.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Reagan was my Bush II equivalent.

My generation (now 40-somethings) was supposed to be so enamored of Reagan, and, unfortunately too many were and remain so, but I was 14 when he was elected and he immediately disgusted me. His election clarified my views that I was a liberal, and I never considered voting for a Republican after that.

[DrToast]

14. The GOP has a lost a generation...

They will be in the minority for decades.

[uponit7771]

16. My cousins kid: "....don't pick the red car that's the color of Republicans..."

WOW....they're so screwn...

[Yavin4]

18. This Is A Strong Reflection of Economic Trends

Young people have to borrow greater and greater sums to pay for their education, while the opportunities for well-paying jobs are disappearing because of globalization.

[ShadowLiberal]

20. Yep, the GOP does so badly with the young that 'conservative' is like a bad word to them

Similar to how conservatives try to make 'liberal' into a bad word.

I used to hang out at a few gaming sites during high school (I'm 23 now) where most people were between 13 to 21 years old, and the few times politics was discussed there it was clear that the democrats/liberals had a big majority there. There was a LOT of hate for George W Bush there, and the GOP to, I would guess that just over 8/10's of the members there considered themselves democrats.

On issues like gay rights especially the GOP agenda is just toxic to young people, Bush and the GOP did a LOT of damage to the GOP brand in 2004 using it as a wedge issue to get the GOP base out to vote. To the young what the GOP did is basically brand themselves as the party of racists, because for most young people (especially the 2/3's majority of them that support gay marriage) discrimination against gays for being gay is no different then racism in their eyes.

[ProgressIn2008]

23. Awesome, I guess that means we can stop obsessing about dead RWers and get single payer. What's

standing in the way now?

[MadMaddie]

24. Hey I had a Repug coworker tell me today that he saw

stats that says there are more Repugs in the US then Dems and Independents!!!:wtf:

[Hamlette]

26. tell him to show you

it could be an online poll or some poll question that asked "if I told you democrats and independents are spawns of the devil, and you believed me, would you call yourself a republican?"

[MadMaddie]

27. ha..ha.. good point!