In 2008, Barack
Obama pulled an amazing 66 percent of the youth vote while his
weather-beaten Republican opponent, John McCain, managed a measly
32 percent. As recently as 2000, the youth vote had been split
evenly between George W. Bush and Al Gore, with each pulling
slightly less than half the total. (The rest went to third-party
candidates.) Democrats look at such trends and declare future
elections over before they’ve started. And on a superficial level,
why not? According to the Reason-Rupe poll, twice as many
millennials—43 percent—call themselves Democrats or lean that way
than call themselves or lean toward Republicans.
Yet the most notable thing about millennials is not their
devotion to the party of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi but their
political disaffiliation from both major political tribes, write
Nick Gillespie and Emily Ekins. Fully 34 percent of 18- to
29-year-olds describe themselves as independent, compared to just
11 percent of voters 30 years and older. That’s a massive
difference, indicating both a healthy skepticism toward the claims
of professional politics and an openness to new arguments that
align with their values.
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