Young Beltway insiders show a greater independent streak than their older counterparts, a Washington Examiner/Echelon poll suggests.
Echelon polled 400 Washington insiders, asking them their candidate preference, their views on policy, and their mood about the country in general. From the cross-tabulations, the outline of a pattern emerges: younger Beltway insiders, even though they tend to associate with one party or the other, feel less attached to it.
Cross-tabs, dealing as they do with sub-samples, need to be seen as rough guides only because they have higher margins of error.
But they are instructive. Younger voters, the polls found, were far more likely to support minor candidates.
Less than 3 percent of voters 65 and older said they would vote for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson or some other candidate besides Clinton or Trump. About 8 percent of voters between 30 and 65 were willing to go for a third-party candidate or write-in. Among young voters, those under 30, about 17 percent said they would vote for Johnson or someone else.
Youth and reluctance go hand-in-hand, among Washington insiders, too. Voters aged 18 to 29 were the most likely to say they were voting reluctantly (30 percent), while the oldest group (65 or older), were the least reluctant, about 17 percent.
Interestingly, young voters were no more likely to identify as independents when it comes to party affiliation. These numbers suggest young Washington insiders still generally pick a side, but they feel less attached to it.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
