Yet another poll is delivering the bad news to the Republican party that it’s turning off an increasing number of young voters — which isn’t terrific news for the party in the long term:
A Democracy Corps poll from the Washington firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner suggests voters ages 18 to 29 have undergone a striking political evolution in recent years.
Young Americans have become so profoundly alienated from Republican ideals on issues including the war in Iraq, global warming, same-sex marriage and illegal immigration that their defections suggest a political setback that could haunt Republicans “for many generations to come,” the poll said.The startling collapse of GOP support among young voters is reflected in the poll’s findings that show two-thirds of young voters surveyed believe Democrats do a better job than Republicans of representing their views – even on issues Republicans once owned, such as terrorism and taxes.
But there is one GOPer who seems to intrigue younger voters:
And among GOP presidential candidates, only former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani registers with more positive views than negative with young voters, the poll shows.
The anti-GOP shift for this generation – which is expected to reach 50 million voters, or 17 percent of the electorate, in 2008 – represents a marked contrast from their predecessors, the Gen Xers born in the mid-’60s to mid-’70s whose demographic represented the strongest Republican voters in the nation, pollster Anna Greenberg said.
Today, “on every single issue, Democrats are doing better with young people – no matter what the issue is,” said Greenberg.
And the San Francisco Chronicle story also has this quote from a GOPer:
Catherine Brinkman, 28, of Foster City, who heads the California Young Republicans, said she hears from many of her Republican friends who say, ” ‘Look at our (presidential) candidates compared to the Democrats: They have Hillary, everyone knows her … and you have this phenomenal (senator) out of Chicago, who is African American and energized.’ ”
The perception is that “we’re still selling the same old white guys,” Brinkman said.
Earlier this month, former Bill Clinton megastrategist James Carville wrote this:
Ideological divisions between the Republican party and young voters are growing. Young voters generally favour larger government providing more services, 68 per cent to 28 per cent. On every issue, from the budget to national security, young voters responded overwhelmingly that Democrats would do a better job in government…..
….A host of new polls and surveys over the course of the past few months has served as a harbinger of a rocky 2008 election for Republicans.
The March poll from the Pew Research Center showed that 50 per cent of Americans identify as Democrats while only 35 per cent say they are Republican. The June NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed 52 per cent of Americans would prefer a Democratic president while only 31 per cent would support a Republican, the largest gap in the 20-year history of the survey.
A June New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll also signified bad news for the GOP on the youth front.
The trend isn’t a good one — but there is that guy from New York..
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.