Glimpse of Young GOP Voters

This week's DailyKos/Research 2000 poll examined beliefs and political philosophies of republican voters. Nate Silver from 538 has an interesting take on it:

"This accounts for what might be the Republicans' greatest strength as we head into the November midterms as well as their greatest liability. The strength is that they can somewhat comfortably adopt a nationalized, one-size-fits-all message. They don't have to worry about the constellation of constituencies that Democrats have: labor voters, Baby-boomer liberals, blacks, Hispanics, college-educated technocrats, libertarianish younger voters, etc. Their base is the same pretty much everywhere, and actuating a strategy that appeals to that base is not challenging.

The liability, meanwhile, is that while the Republican base might be the same pretty much everywhere, the rest of the electorate isn't. Some states and districts have different ratios of Republicans to Democratic and independent voters. Moreover, they have different types of Democratic and independent voters, some of whom may be amenable to the Republican message and others of whom won't be."

Notable graphs where 18-29 year old voters differed the most from other age demographics:

This week NPR also did a report about young voters and the Teabagger movement.

"Mr. JORDAN MARKS (Executive Director, Americans for Freedom): I personally went and interviewed young Democrats that had spent a lot of time on his campaign to figure out what they had done differently.

GONYEA: But beyond the Internet, conservatives say their basic message is now getting more traction. As president, Barack Obama now has a record and conservatives say theres reason for young voters to start to scrutinize what hes accomplished.

Twenty-six-year-old Ashley Sewell of the group Smart Girl Politics says recent college graduates are facing a brutal job market. She says 20-somethigns are worried and that provides an opening.

Ms. ASHLEY SEWELL (Smart Girl Politics): I think so, primarily because the conservative movement has really started to gain some traction. And I think that were starting to gain some legitimacy in the conversation.

GONYEA: Professor Peter Levine runs a nonpartisan program at Tufts University specializing in politics and young people.

Professor PETER LEVINE (Director, CIRCLE; Civic Studies, Tufts University): So I don't think the fact that they would be enthusiastic about Barack Obama in 2008 would guarantee that they would continue to feel that way. Theyre faced with a lot of things, including a very high unemployment rate. And it would be easy for them to change their mind about the effectiveness of government. "

Gonyea goes on to say that Levine describes young voters as being more liberal than the US as a whole and when conservatives spend too much time on issues like gay marriage it works against them.