Here’s yet another big of post 2008 election conventional wisdom that is being shattered — and is bad new for the Democratic party: the Democrats are losing ground now among young “millenial” voters — a pro-government, more liberal group of voters.
The Pew Research Center reports this:
The “Millennial Generation” of young voters played a big role in the resurgence of the Democratic Party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but their attachment to the Democratic Party weakened markedly over the course of 2009. The Democratic advantage over the Republicans in party affiliation among young voters, including those who “lean” to a party, reached a whopping 62% to 30% margin in 2008. But by the end of 2009 this 32-point margin had shrunk to just 14 points: 54% Democrat, 40% Republican.
While the Republican Party picked up support from Millennials during 2009, this age group continues to favor the Democratic Party more than do other generations. And the underlying political values of this new generation continue to be significantly more liberal than those of other generations on many measures
Aside from partisanship, this distinctiveness is most evident in the Millennials’ social values, but can also be seen in greater support for government in general, and somewhat lower levels of support for an assertive national security policy compared with other generations. On other important dimensions, however, such as attitudes and values about business and about the social safety net, young people today are not particularly distinctive.
Young voters were Barack Obama’s strongest supporters in the 2008, but the Democratic Party’s advantage among Millennials predates Obama’s emergence on the political scene. Indeed, they had been the party’s best age group in both the 2004 and 2006 elections.
Pew notes that there is an uptick in these younger voters now for the GOP but that the trend is more of losing enthusiasm with the Democrats that becoming Republicans:
Despite the shift in partisan leaning among Millennials, the Republican Party has had limited success in increasing the number of Millennials who identify as — and not just lean –Republican. Just 22% of Millennial voters identified as Republican in 2008, and there was no significant rise in the latest polling (24% in the 4th quarter of 2009).
In another sign of sagging enthusiasm for the Democrats, Obama’s job approval rating slipped substantially over the past year among Millennials as well as among older age groups. Millennials were by far Obama’s strongest age group in the 2008 election — supporting him by about a two-to-one margin over John McCain, according to national exit polls. And in February 2009, 73% of Millennials approved of Obama’s job performance — the highest percentage in any age group. One year later, in February 2010, just 57% of Millennials give Obama a positive rating; still, Obama’s ratings among Millennials are eight points higher than among Generation Xers and Baby Boomers (49% each) and 19 points higher than among those in the Silent Generation (38%).
Here is their chart on this voting pattern that should keep Democratic strategists and the White House tossing and turning at night:
Go to the link to read it in its entirety.
Essentially what is now being seen is the disintegration of much of the conventional wisdom that was pronounced as reality after the 2008 Presidential election.
This is due to the self-assured nature of most 21st century new and old media commentary — followed by the systematic weakening of Barack Obama’s election-winning coalition. Historians will most likely differ on the exact cause of Obama’s plummet but it is safe to say that Obama and the Democrats erred in several notable ways by making health care reform the signature issue of 2009. Among them: past efforts showed that it was a politically debilitating issue so in putting political capital on the line it was a calculated risk with a HUGE risk factor; doing so at a moment when the country was reeling from whopping job losses added another risk — that it was assumed the job picture would begin to show signs of getting better.
When Obama and other Democrats now say they made it an issue in 2009 even though they were told it would hurt them politically that’s admirable — but doesn’t obscure the fact that it will likely be seen by historians as a huge miscalculation that
tossed the gift handed to them by voters in 2008 into the political trashbin.
In the end, health care reform didn’t materialize and not just because of GOP opposition but because of Democratic disunity and the ugly political horse trading that was required to get Democrats onboard; the job picture remained cloudy and little new news emerged in news cycles indicating major government programs or efforts to unstick the situation.
But the worst part about it was this: in terms of the media focus, it gave them impression that the executive branch and parts of Congress were focused like a laser on health care reform but not on jobs, jobs, jobs or other issues that came up during the campaign embraced by young voters.
A gummed up Congress, bad job picture, and political gridlock makes it tougher for Democrats to now say to young voters: “Just vote to put us in charge and we’ll make it happen unlike the establishment! OOPS! We are in charge. We are the establishment! But just give us another chance….”
Despite complicating factors (such as the GOP strategy to resist most Democratic initiatives and stall them in Congress), in terms of sheer imagery the past year has not been a public relations boon for Democrats among young voters. I recently asked a young man who turned 18 which party he was going to join and he said without batting an eyelash: “Neither. Right now they both look pretty bad.”
Which is reflected in this poll.
h/T: Political Wire
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.