New Young Voter Report: Partisanship is a Habit

Posted by on February 5, 2007

A new YVS paper, Partisanship is a Habit, shows how courting young voters today is a strategic way for political parties to win power in the long run.

When tracking the rise and fall of America?s political parties, a remarkable trend develops: those who win the youth vote are, a generation later, the party in power. As noted by scholar Norman Ornstein in 1986: ?All the research done on the dramatic Democratic realignment of the 1930s shows that the key was young voters, coming of age as the Depression hit, influenced deeply by the contrast between Hoover and Roosevelt. Those young voters became lifelong Democrats. The oldest segment of today’s population, those who came of age during the golden years for the Republicans (the Roaring Twenties), remain staunchly Republican today.?

We see a similar generational trend among voters who first entered the electorate in the 1960s and 1980s. A Pew Research Center chart, shows how voters who came of age during the Reagan era are today the most Republican age group, while those who first voted during the Kennedy and Johnson years remain today a staunchly Democratic group.

Clearly, courting and winning young voters should be a priority for the political parties. Not only can the sheer size and growing engagement of young adults help win close elections today, but can help build political power for the future. For more on this research and how it impacts politics today, see Partisanship is Habit-Forming.

http://www.youngvoterstrategies.org/index.php?tg=articles&topics=46&mylocation=Tools