Young Voters

Michael Baharaeen at The Liberal Patriot:

Another front on which these cultural shifts occur is age—and this factor has offered a clear advantage to one of the two parties in recent years. To wit: the youth vote remains stubbornly Democratic at the moment. While it has historically been common for people to grow more conservative as they age, this just doesn’t appear to be happening with millennials.

The Financial Times’s John Burn-Murdoch brilliantly documented how compared to the previous three generations—all of whom voted more Republican the further they got into life—millennials have been trending in the opposite direction so far...

This was especially visible in the 2022 midterms, when Gen Z and millennial voters were the lone generation to vote more Democratic in the national U.S. House vote relative to the 2020 election. Moreover, according to the General Social Survey, young people have voted more Democratic in the last four presidential elections—compared to both other age brackets and their own cohort’s past performance—than at any other time in the past half century.

Among the theories for why younger voters are staying liberal into adulthood is that these voters have also adopted other traits that differ from previous generations—traits that have made them more predisposed to voting Democratic. For example, younger Americans are a less religious cohort. Many are getting married later in life and also forgoing having children. Young people are also growing up in a much more tolerant and diverse society than many of their parents did.

Additionally, there is some evidence that the political events that happened during their formative years—the War on Terror, the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of Donald Trump, increased gun violence, climate change—likely left an imprint on them that will not soon be shaken. Political scientists affiliated with the Democratic data firm Catalist have used sophisticated statistical modeling to track differences by age group over time. 

Death by Party

Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Jason L. Schwartz, "Excess Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the COVID-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Paper 30512 ttp://www.nber.org/papers/w30512

Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19, amid evidence that Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat- leaning counties and evidence of a link between political party affiliation and vaccination views. This study constructs an individual-level dataset with political affiliation and excess death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic via a linkage of 2017 voter registration in Ohio and Florida to mortality data from 2018 to 2021. We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points (pp), or 76%, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats. Post- vaccines, the excess death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats widened from 1.6 pp (22% of the Democrat excess death rate) to 10.4 pp (153% of the Democrat excess death rate). The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available.

Party ID in 2019

From Pew:

Republicans hold wide advantages in party identification among several groups of voters, including white men without a college degree, people living in rural communities in the South and those who frequently attend religious services.

Democrats hold formidable advantages among a contrasting set of voters, such as black women, residents of urban communities in the Northeast and people with no religious affiliation.

With the presidential election on the horizon, the U.S. electorate continues to be deeply divided by race and ethnicity, education, gender, age and religion. The Republican and Democratic coalitions, which bore at least some demographic similarities in past decades, have strikingly different profiles today.

A new analysis by Pew Research Center of long-term trends in party affiliation – based on surveys conducted among more than 360,000 registered voters over the past 25 years, including more than 12,000 in 2018 and 2019 – finds only modest changes in recent years.

Overall, 34% of registered voters identify as independents, 33% as Democrats and 29% as Republicans. The share of voters identifying as Republicans is now the same as it was in 2016, after having ticked down in 2017; Democratic identification is unchanged. Slightly fewer voters identify as independents than in 2017 (34% vs. 37%). See detailed tables.

Most independents lean toward one of the major parties (leaners tend to vote and have similar views as those who identify with a party), and when the partisan leanings of independents are taken into account, 49% of registered voters identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, while 44% affiliate with the GOP or lean Republican.

Why Republicans and Democrats Self-Segregate

In 2017, David Wasserman wrote at FiveThirtyEight:

Of the nation’s 3,113 counties (or county equivalents), just 303 were decided by single-digit margins — less than 10 percent. In contrast, 1,096 counties fit that description in 1992, even though that election featured a wider national spread.1 During the same period, the number of extreme landslide counties — those decided by margins exceeding 50 percentage points — exploded from 93 to 1,196, or over a third of the nation’s counties.

Bradley Jones at Pew:

Republicans and Democrats express sharply different preferences about their ideal communities and house sizes. And while large numbers of people in both parties say it is important to live in a community that is a good place to raise children, partisans diverge on whether it is important that a community is racially and ethnically diverse.

Nearly two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (65%) say they would prefer to live in a community where houses are larger and farther apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away.

By contrast, a majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (58%) would rather live in a community in which houses are smaller and closer to each other, but schools, stores and restaurants are in walking distance.

The ideological differences in community preferences are stark, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in September among 9,895 U.S. adults. Conservative Republicans are about twice as likely as liberal Democrats to prefer a community where the houses are larger and more widely spaced (71% vs. 35%). These overall patterns of opinion are little changed from 2017.

....
But Democrats and Democratic leaners are nearly 30 percentage points more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say it is important to live in a community that is racially and ethnically diverse (77% vs. 48%). And while 42% of Republicans say it is important to live in a community where most people share their religious views, fewer Democrats (25%) say the same.

The Partisan Trench in the House, 2019

Ronald Brownstein at CNN:

To illuminate the differences between the seats each party holds, CNN producer Aaron Kessler used census data to track some of the key characteristics of all 435 House districts. That exercise, employing data from the American Community Survey's 2012-2016 district-level estimates, produced a stark divergence between the 235 House Democrats and the 199 House Republicans (for the purpose of this analysis, CNN treated the North Carolina House seat enmeshed in allegations of voter fraud as vacant).

The divergence is apparent across every key measure.

In the new House, just over three-fifths of the Democrats represent districts where the minority share of the population exceeds the national average of 38%. Almost exactly 85% of House Republicans represent districts that are more white than the national average of 62%.

Almost three-fifths of the Democrats represent districts where the share of adults holding at least four-year college degrees exceeds the national average of 30.3%. Over three-fourths of the House Republicans represent districts with fewer college graduates than average.

Nearly three-fifths of House Democrats hold seats where the median income exceeds the national level of $55,322. Two-thirds of House Republicans hold districts where the median income lags below the national level.

Nearly 54% of the House Democrats hold seats where the median age is younger than the national level of 37.7. Almost exactly 60% of House Republicans hold districts that are older than the national median.

Just over three-fifths of Democrats represent districts where the immigrant share of the population (the portion of people born abroad) exceeds the national average of 13.2%. Over 90% of House Republicans represent districts with fewer immigrants than the national average. (These numbers do not include the 18 seats in Pennsylvania, where the immigrant population was not available for the state's recently redrawn districts.)

Words, Public Opinion, and Higher Education

At Gallup, Brandon Busteed and Frank Newport report:

Different words used to describe higher education evoke different confidence ratings among U.S. adults. Americans are considerably more likely to say they have a great deal of confidence in "higher education" than in "colleges and universities." Public confidence in "community colleges" and "postsecondary education" falls between these other two terms.
...
The term colleges and universities in a comparative sense evokes more negative reactions than the broader terms higher education or postsecondary education. Thirty-six percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in higher education, compared with 29% who have a great deal of confidence in postsecondary education and 23% who have a great deal of confidence in colleges and universities. More broadly, these differences persist, but are slightly reduced, when adding in the group of Americans who say they have quite a lot of confidence -- 55% have either a great deal of or quite a lot of confidence in higher education, compared with 45% in colleges and universities.

Gallup also finds a partisan and ideological divide:

Confidence in Four Ways of Describing Postsecondary Education, by Partisanship and Ideology

% Great deal of confidence

	Higher education	Community colleges	Postsecondary education	Colleges and universities
	%	%	%	%
Party ID
Republicans	26	28	25	12
Independents	33	27	28	22
Democrats	50	34	33	37
Ideology
Conservatives	25	28	26	15
Moderates	40	31	29	26
Liberals	45	30	35	28
GALLUP, JAN. 8-28, 2018

Lots of Money in This Election

The Center for Responsive Politics reports:

The 2012 presidential and congressional elections will be the most expensive on record, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics estimates -- though not by much. The Center predicts, based on data from 18 months of fundraising and spending, that the elections will cost $5.8 billion, an increase of 7 percent from the 2008 cost of $5.4 billion. But outside spending, which is soaring while presidential candidate spending declines, is a wild card that makes predictions tricky.

So far overall in the first 18 months of the 2012 cycle, $2.2 billion has been spent, compared with $2.4 billion in 2008.

The presidential race by itself will cost about $2.5 billion, the Center predicts, in funds laid out by the candidates, Democratic and Republican party committees and outside spending groups. The candidates have raised about $608 million, compared with more than $1.1 billion at this point in the 2008 cycle.

As for the outside groups, The Huffington Post reports:

Through July 26, politically involved groups that do not disclose their donors have spent at least $172 million on campaigns that include television, radio and Internet advertising, according to a Huffington Post review of FEC reports, advertising buys, press releases and news stories. Total spending by these groups is likely far greater, since they are required to report only a fraction of their spending to the FEC. Politically involved independent groups that publicly disclose their donors, including super PACs, have spent $174 million so far this election cycle.

"For this cycle, we know almost nothing," said Center for Responsive Politics communications director Viveca Novak, referring to those behind the spending of non-disclosing groups.

Crossroads GPS is the biggest spender, with $85.9 million in spending in announced advertising since the beginning of 2011, according to its press releases.

The Campaign Finance Institute reports:

In an election filled with tumultuous campaign finance change, the six major national political party committees so far have been holding their own financially. According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on July 20, the two national committees and four congressional committees had raised a combined total of $792 million in the eighteen months between January 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012.

This put the parties well ahead of the previous hard-money record years of 2008 ($625 million at eighteen months) and 2004 ($616 million) (see Table 1), which were the first two presidential elections after parties had to raise all of their money as hard money under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA or McCain-Feingold). In fact it even puts the parties ahead of the combined 18-month hard-and-soft money records of $644 million in 2000 and $720 million in 2002. (Information about 1990-2002 is available in FEC press releases of September 2000 and2002.)

The parties’ hard money success since 2002 has come about because the parties replaced soft money with (a) money from small donors coming into all six committees, (b) money from Members of Congress to the four Hill committees, and (c) money from presidential candidates’ joint fundraising committees coming into the RNC and DNC.

Bloggers for Hire

Our chapter on the mass media discusses the increasingly important role of bloggers. The Daily Caller reports that some of them are not independent voices:

Katie Couric once described bloggers as journalists who gnaw at new information “like piranhas in a pool.” But increasingly, many bloggers are also secretly feeding on cash from political campaigns, in a form of partisan payola that erases the line between journalism and paid endorsement.

“It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.”

...

On the left, many of the once independent bloggers are now employed by, or receive money from, liberal organizations like Media Matters, the Center for American Progress and Campaign for America’s Future.

Some critics allege that the funding sources have distorted the once vibrant voice of the liberal blogosphere, discouraging dissent in favor of staying “on message” to help President Obama and Democrats in Congress pass their legislative agenda.

Indeed, many of the groups now employing liberal bloggers meet with White House aides for a weekly strategy session on Tuesday afternoons organized by the group Common Purpose.

Last year, Politico reported:

The Common Purpose meeting every Tuesday afternoon at the Capitol Hilton brings together the top officials from a range of left-leaning organizations, from labor groups like Change to Win to activists like MoveOn.org, all in support of the White House's agenda. The group has an overlapping membership with a daily 8:45 a.m. call run by the Center for American Progress' and Media Matters' political arms; with the new field-oriented coalition Unity '09; and with the groups that allied to back the budget as the Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America Now.

Gallup reports that Democrats have an edge with the young:

Gallup Daily tracking data reinforce the value of younger voters for the Democrats, showing that 18- to 29-year-olds favor the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate in their local districts by a 12-point margin. In contrast, the Republican candidate is on top among all groups of voters aged 30 and older.

But lower turnout potentially diminishes the value of that advantage:

Younger voters remain less enthusiastic about voting in this year's midterm elections than those who are older, underscoring the challenge facing the Democratic Party in its efforts to re-energize these voters, who helped President Obama win the presidency in 2008.

Lower youth turnout is consistent with historical patterns. As we discuss in our chapter on public opinion and political participation, young people have long voted at lower rates than older people. Here are the turnout rates by age for citizens in the 2008 election:

18-24 48.5%

25-44 60.0%

45-64 69.2%

65+ 70.3%

Religion and Party Politics

New Gallup data reinforce observations that we make in chapters 5 (civic culture) and 10 (political parties): there is a strong relationship between religious belief and party preference:

The basic relationship between religiosity and party identification is quite strong and quite straightforward. The percentage of Americans who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party drops from 49% among the highly religious to 26% among those who are not religious. The percentage who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party rises from 37% among the highly religious to 56% among those who are not religious. For comparison, the party figures for November among all adults in these data are 40% Republicans/Republican leaners and 45% Democrats/Democratic leaners.

Thus, Republicans are in the plurality among highly religious Americans. For each of the other three groups, Democrats are equal with or higher in number than Republicans. The Democratic edge expands as religiosity decreases. Among the not-religious group, Democrats have a 30-point edge over Republicans.

Religion-Friendly

A new Pew poll has data on how "religion-friendly" Americans regard various individuals and institutions:

More Americans continue to view the Republican Party as friendly toward religion (48%) than rate the Democratic Party that way (29%). President Barack Obama’s administration, however, is seen as friendly toward religion by more people (37%) than the Democratic Party as a whole. And all three get higher ratings for friendliness toward religion than the news media (14%), scientists (12%) or Hollywood (11%)

.