Yes, Republicans really do have a problem with young voters. And according to a newly released study, they at least temporarily lost almost half of their under-29 supporters during the 2016 election campaign, and half of those have not come back.
The Pew Research Center surveyed the same panel of more than 8,000 adult respondents five times, beginning in December 2015 and ending in March 2017, to track their party self-identification. Most partisans and leaners — 66 percent of self-identified Republicans and 65 percent of Democrats — kept their colors the same throughout, never wavering.
But young Republicans were the big exception. During that time period, 44 percent of them said they’d left the party — half of those (21 percent of the total) ultimately returned, but the other half (23 percent of the total) now say they are Democrats.
It’s hard to say (from the reported data, at least) what role Trump played in this. According to exit polling, he didn’t do significantly worse than Romney among the 18 to 29 age cohort, picking up 36 percent of their votes. The Pew survey does at least show that Republican defectors have a very low opinion of Trump, with 84 percent disapproving overall and 57 percent strongly. Democrats who became Republicans have much softer feelings about Trump, with only 62 percent approving of his job performance in March.
It’s kind of a shame they didn’t ask (or at least they didn’t report back answers) about who left or joined a party specifically because of Trump, a subject of intense debate among Republicans during the 2016 primaries.
Democrats suffered their greatest defections among 50 to 64-year-olds, 24 percent of whom became Republicans at some point during the study period, and 14 percent of whom remain so today. The oldest voters (over 65) were the most stable of all the groups, having already chosen their team before going on Medicare. Only 13 percent of senior Republicans and 11 percent of senior Democrats ever wavered, and the lasting defections in each case are in the single digits.
But the big takeaway has to be Republicans’ problem with young voters. There was no other group in any age cohort with such a large share of defections, temporary or permanent. Although the party-shifting overall was basically a wash, due to differences in the various cohorts’ sizes, it won’t always be that way if Republicans don’t persuade more young people. Most of today’s younger voters will be voting longer than most of today’s older voters.
