Generation Dudebro

Maybe this is statistical noise, and maybe it's not, but the crew at the Monkey Cage cite new evidence suggests that while Millennials in their 20's are reliably Democratic having come of age during the Bush years, voters 18-20 have grown up with a lot more Obama bashing from both the left and right and are nearly evenly split on party affiliation:

Below is the party identification of millennials broken down by age group. (I thank Esten Perez and John Della Volpe of Harvard for providing me these data.)



The graph captures the percent who identify with or lean toward the Democratic or Republican parties. The remainder identify as independents and do not lean toward either party. Older groups of millennials are decidedly Democrats. For example, the Democratic advantage is +18 (48%-30%) among 27-29-year-olds.

But among younger millennials, that advantage shrinks. In fact, Democrats and Republicans are essentially tied among 18-20 year olds: 41 percent Democratic and 38 percent Republican.

As I noted in my first post — and as Dan Hopkins recently described in more detail — the explanation is straightforward: the partisan complexion of each new generation reflects underlying economic and political fundamentals, like how well the economy is doing and how popular the president is.

Thus, it’s hardly any surprise that the youngest millennials are not as Democratic as older millennials. The youngest millennials came of age politically under a Democratic president whose popularity is below average and who has presided over a sluggish economy. Older millennials came of age politically under a Republican incumbent who became even less popular while presiding over a controversial war and a catastrophic recession. There is no reason that the two groups should be political twins.

I hit my college age years during the Clinton administration, only to run into the buzzsaw of the dot-com collapse, 9/11 and the recession, and Bush's wars.  You couldn't pay me to vote Republican.  But for today's college freshmen, the issues important to them: jobs, college loans, and digital privacy, the Democrats haven't delivered (even though most of that is the GOP's fault.)  I don't really blame them for that, then again I've got the benefit of 18 more years of experience.

Pretty striking difference however.  It's not like the youngest Millennials were responsible for 2010.

They may however be responsible for 2014.