Posted on 07/08/2014 5:24:57 AM PDT by Theoria
There was a time not so long ago when the young seemed destined to be liberal forever. Americans in their teens and 20s were to the left of their elders on social issues. They worried more about poverty. They voted strongly Democratic.
In retrospect, we refer to this period as the 1960s, and it didn’t last long, let alone forever. Less than a generation after young people were marching for civil rights and against the Vietnam War, they voted overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan.
Today, of course, the young are liberal again, and it seems as if they will be forever. They favor same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization, stricter gun laws, citizenship for illegal immigrants and an activist government that fights climate change and inequality. The Republican Party, as you have probably noticed, does not.
But the temporary nature of the 1960s should serve as a reminder that politics change. What seems permanent can become fleeting. And the Democratic Party, for all its strengths among Americans under 40, has some serious vulnerabilities, too.
In the simplest terms, the Democrats control the White House (and, for now, the Senate) at a time when the country is struggling. Economic growth has been disappointing for almost 15 years now. Most Americans think this country is on the wrong track. Our foreign policy often seems messy and complex, at best.
To Americans in their 20s and early 30s — the so-called millennials — many of these problems have their roots in George W. Bush’s presidency. But think about people who were born in 1998, the youngest eligible voters in the next presidential election. They are too young to remember much about the Bush years or the excitement surrounding the first Obama presidential campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It isn’t purely a matter of race, the white percentages used to be a little higher, and Romney’s turnout was slightly higher than McCains’s, not 4 million lower.
I’m not aware of anything showing that the white youth stayed home in 2012.
I hope this is true, but I’m dubious.
Remember that a huge percentage have been given a progressive education by teachers who got a progressive education themselves.
My perception is that the typical millennial knows more about “climate change” than the US Constitution.
I said that wrong, the turnout WAS lower for 2012, but Romney did increase his share by less than a million over McCain in 2008.
As far as how it broke down I don’t know, Romney did easily win the Independents, yet still lost, it might have been conservatives who stayed home, possibly because of Romney coming out as pro-choice, and running pro-choice ads in battleground states.
I know two conservatives 21 & 17....not Zero fans.
Like my M-I-L used to say about an adult female child that was still living with and off of them...
"Someday ____ will discover that toilet paper costs money."
They don’t.
And probably received 100% of the deceived MORMON vote...
Romney was the designated loser. McCain was so proud to lose that he suspended his campaign when it got too much momentum and then pretty much endorsed Obama a week before the election.
Romney did better with Evangelicals than with Mormons, he won 79% of the Evangelical vote.
I use the age and racial data provided by NEP, which is used by all major news networks, AP, and the NY Times.
You may be using some parts of the Census Bureau election data, which can be substantially different.
According to my math:
2012 - Obama’s white vote went down 5.5 million.
2012 - Romney's white vote went up 1.4 million compared to McCain.
2012 - Total white voters went down 4.2 million.
Many folks at Free Republic insist that 4 million Conservatives stayed home in 2012.
I don't think the data supports that conclusion.
I think it is much more likely that 4 million white Obama supporters stayed home in 2012.
A definitive answer to this question can actually be found in the raw NEP data.
But that's behind a pay wall.
Romney got fewer than a million more votes than McCain, although he was running against Jimmy Carter’s second term, in an election that republicans couldn’t lose, and on the verge of a depression.
Mitt did that while easily winning Independents yet losing the election, which is almost unheard of, Romney depressed the republican vote is what it seems.
Although Romney got 59% of the white vote, that was close to the 58% in 2004, and much less than numbers like 67% and 64% and white turn out was low.
If his white numbers went up greatly as you say, and he did great with non-republican (the independents), then someone stayed home among the base.
You mean 20% of the Mormons voted for OBAMA???
Namely, Republicans do not have a “youth” problem.
We have a "race" problem.
2012 - All White Voters - Age 18-29
Romney: 51%
Obama: 44%
2012 - White Women Voters - Age 18-29
Romney: 49%
Obama: 48%
I think 2008 was an historical outlier for 5 reasons:
(1) The MSM created an Obama that did not exist.
(2) White guilt.
(3) The worst recession since 1931.
(4) President Bush - the lowest approval since Hoover.
(5) John McCain - the most demoralizing GOP candidate since Hoover.
Conservatives already outnumber liberals by a large margin. The problem is both political parties and most of the media despise conservative values.
Nixon did better than that with the under 30s during the draft and the Vietnam war and with a hateful media, and all the other things people think of during the time.
We have all kinds of problems, youth, race, and Romney driving down turnout.
In 1968, Nixon got 43.4% of the popular vote compared to Romney’s 47.2%, so I doubt Nixon got a higher percentage of the white youth vote than Romney.
In the 1972 election, we had no combat troops in Vietnam, and the Draft ended 3 months later.
When I say we have a “race” problem, I mean we have a LEGAL immigration problem.
Since the Reagan Amnesty in 1986, we have naturalized 20 million new Socialist voters.
We have ONE problem...
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