Millennials have not turned more conservative, contrary to arguments made by people who want to believe it into existence.
For Lifezette, a weak economy has driven disillusionment with a liberal approach.
“Many millennials are left jaded by the Obama administration and recognize the failure of his economic policies,” Ashley Pratte writes. “Overall, there are two significant issues that are of utmost importance to millennials: the economy as well as college affordability and student debt. A close third, is foreign policy and terrorism.”
David Barnes, the policy director of Generation Opportunity, echoes those sentiments. “The unemployment rate for those aged 18-29 is 7.6%—about 50% higher than the general population,” Barnes writes for Time. “Our generation has been disappointed to learn that going to college is an increasingly costly proposition that doesn’t always pay off.”
They aren’t wrong about issues that give millennials anxiety. Job creation and education policy rank highly when pollsters ask millennials what drives their votes. Young Americans realize the importance of economic growth for their material comfort and future prospects. A political party that can’t present a plan to make people better off will not grab the attention of millennials.
Millennials, however, have not deserted liberalism for the open arms of conservatism. In some ways, support for the Democratic Party and President Obama has grown.
A fall poll conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that 45 percent of millennials prefer the Democrats to win the 2016 presidential election. That’s only a one percentage point increase from the spring, but only 36 percent of millennials wanted the Republicans to regain control of the White House. Support for Republicans fell four percentage points from the spring.
When Harvard asked millennials about their party affiliation, 36 percent identified with the Democrats over 21 percent for Republicans. Democratic affiliation declined two percentage points compared to fall 2011, but Republican affiliation declined by four percentage points. A full 39 percent of respondents defined themselves as liberal, compared with 33 percent defined as conservative. Liberals only gained one percentage point from fall 2011, but conservatives declined by four percentage points.
Yes, Americans in general trust the Republican Party to handle terrorist threats and improve the economy more than the Democratic Party. The Harvard poll also found a majority of millennials that support sending ground troops to fight the Islamic State since the terrorist attacks in Paris.
That doesn’t point to a conservative turn for millennials, however. It shows that millennials, like most Americans, are confused about politics. They don’t follow a philosophically rigorous line for all issues. Current events sway opinion, like terrorist attacks, or school shootings, or a drop in the unemployment rate.
If anything, millennials have become more detached. Self-described moderates have increased to 25 percent, a two percentage point rise from 2011, and non-affiliated independents have increased to 40 percent, compared to 36 percent in 2011. Remaining unaffiliated, or describing political opinions as moderate, doesn’t mean millennials aren’t conservative. Suggesting that a great disillusionment has happened from eight years of Obama, though, is mere fantasy.
Conservatives shouldn’t start patting their own backs for winning over young voters. That isn’t happening. To win over young voters would require developing platforms on millennial issues and running campaigns to attract this demographic. Most 2016 Republican campaigns have not committed any effort to this.
