PEW: Youth-Driven Demographic Shift Moves the Electorate Left

Posted by Mike Connery, AlterNet at 11:31 AM on April 29, 2008.

A new report by the PEW Research Center confirms what rising primary turnout is already telling us: there is a huge demographic shift approaching in the electorate in the form of the Millennial Generation, and that shift will largely benefit the Democratic Party.

As the PEW data indicates, this is a shift that is occurring among almost all segments of the Millennial generation, but the shift along gender lines seems to be most significant. Among young voters (18 - 29 year olds), in the last 16 years, young women have moved from a +8 advantage for the Democrats (50 - 42%) to an incredible +35 point advantage (63 - 28%). Among young men, that partisan identification has moved from a 10 point deficit (42 - 52% Republican) to a 14 point advantage (52 - 38%).

These are seismic shifts in the electorate and they are hugely significant.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, it was Generation X and the late Baby Boomers who occupied the 18 - 29 year olds slot in the electorate. They were very conservative as a group and helped elect Reagan and Bush Sr., and usher in the Gingrich Revolution. That laid the groundwork for the Republican majorities we have suffered through these last two decades.

The Millennial Generation is larger than the Baby Boom, and on almost every issue they are vastly more progressive. That fact is starting to come through in their voting habits and party identification. As the PEW data makes clear, Millennials could do for Democrats what the late Boomers and Gen Xers did for the Republicans - forge a new governing majority.

One more item of note in the Pew data. Research tells us that if you can get a voter to cast their ballot for a certain party in their first three major elections, that person tends to become a party voter for life. The PEW data shows that Gen X may be one of the first generations to actually buck that trend:

Apparently the Bush Administration's policies are so toxic that they are driving away one of the Republican Party's most loyal bases.

Tagged as: youth, polling, millennial generation, pew

Michael Connery is the author of Youth to Power: How Today's Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow's Progressive Majority. He blogs about progressive youth organizing at Future Majority and is an adviser to a number of progressive youth organizations.