Millennial malaise
For over 20 years, I’ve heard progressives bemoan the lack of participation by young voters. I remember one of my early congressional clients wondering why he’d helped give us kids the right to vote at 18. “Most of you don’t use it. You don’t care.”
The rap was that young voters turned out in such dismally low numbers that it wasn’t worth a campaign’s money or time to talk to them. In the 1980’s and early 90’s, we also saw that young people were just as likely (if not more likely) to vote for the Republican for President than the Democrat.
I remember one particularly colorful state senator telling me: “We’re better off with little old ladies any day over these punks.”
Surge ahead to 2008 and all that had changed. Millennial voters (ages 18-29) were enthused and engaged. And they were voting Democratic.
The buzz was that young people were participating and voting in record numbers. But the real story was a little more complicated.
Millennials who voted supported Barack Obama by a large margin–exit polls showed 66%. Many of them were more active and involved than folks in their age group had ever been. But the final numbers show Obama would have won the election without them.
While enthusiasm for the Democratic nominee was way up in 2008, young voters’ percentage of the overall turnout was up only slightly—18% in 2008 vs 17% in 2004. The percentage of young voters jumped in Indiana and North Carolina (states Obama would have lost without the youth vote), but their numbers were actually down in other key states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.
The key was intensity. Young voters were engaged, excited and more liberal than other population segments. They were much more willing to support then-Senator Obama and other Democrats down the ticket by wide margins.
Fast forward to 2010. The youth vote should be a significant factor for Democrats, right? Not so fast…
A recent Harvard Institute of Politics poll shows that young voters who are saying they will definitely vote in the 2010 mid-term elections aren’t necessarily our friends. 41% are Republicans, 35% are Democrats and 53% say they voted for John McCain.
That’s a pretty major reversal of fortune in less than 2 years. Only one thing can account for it. It looks like turnout among Millennials will be lower overall. Right now, young Democrats and more liberal 18-29 year olds are planning to stay home.
It’s like a flashback to the Reagan years. It would make Alex P. Keaton proud.
May 20th, 2010 at 10:36 am
A minor point I would like to make on your post. You mention that it is a major reversal of fortune in less than two years. I would respectfully disagree. It is further evidence that the Millennials (of which I am one for several more months) are becoming more engaged (especially since as a midterm election, turnout is by nature lower without the excitement of a Presidential race).
So then the trick is, figuring out a way to re-energize those Millennials that we can count on, which is going to be tricky. The changed they were promised has been pushed down the road (from their perspective), a unified Republican front in saying ‘No’ and a semi-fractured Democratic caucus (especially within the Senate). The solution to all that in my mind (if only focusing on re-energizing the Millennials) is to have the White House enforce party unity within the Senate and produce meaningful work on Gay Rights and currently the Wall St. reform bill by doing what many populists (and general citizenry) feel is the correct choice: breaking up the banks to eliminate the possibility that any one institution can bring down our Nation again and encourage and produce competition between the various groups of banks that will ultimately benefit themselves along with everyone else.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
July 14th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Eric: Sorry for my delayed response. Very reasonable point. I think it is fair to say that the nature of the Millennial voter pool has changed substantially in 2010 because of much lower participation from liberal/progressive younger voters and a fair amount of disillusionment that they have not seen the major changes they expected happen quickly or at all. I agree with you that equality and marriage equality are major issues for these voters — to their great credit, they have a stronger sense of fairness than many Americans. I also think that to have waited this long for the major reform we need to address the Wall Street greed and recklessness that almost brought down the world’s economy is politically tone deaf and a huge mistake from a policy standpoint. It should have been one of the first things on the agenda after the swearing in last year. And it would have passed at that time with huge support.