Center for American Progress

Aaron Marks of Next Gen GOP wrote a piece this week (currently featured on The Next Right) calling on GOP Chairman Michael Steele to include more young people in the party ranks, and create a GOP equivalent to the DNC Youth Council.

Marks is right to be worried about the lack of outreach to young voters on behalf of the Republican Party. As a new report by the Center for American Progress (pdf), compiled from over a dozen sources, makes clear, failure to do so is political suicide for the GOP:

In 2008, about 55 million Millennials were of voting age and roughly 48 million were citizen-eligible voters. Between now and 2018, Millennials of voting age will increase in number by about 4 and a half million each year. And in 2020, the first presidential election where all Millennials will have reached voting age, this generation will be 103 million strong, of which about 90 million will be eligible voters. Those 90 million Millennial eligible voters will represent just under 40 percent of America’s eligible voters.

These trends mean that every election until 2020 will see a bigger share of Millennial voters both because more of them will be eligible to vote and because the leading edge of the Millennials will be aging into higher turnout years. Thus, in 2012, there will be 74 million Millennials of voting age and 64 million Millennial eligible voters, accounting for 29 percent of all eligible voters. Assuming that Millennials’ relatively good turnout performance continues (but not that it gets any better), that should translate into roughly 35 million Millennials who cast ballots in 2012 and an estimated 26 percent of all voters.

By 2016, there will be 93 million Millennials of voting age and 81 million Millennial eligible voters—accounting for 36 percent of all eligible voters. This should produce an estimated 46 million voting Millennials, representing 33 percent of all voters. And in 2020, those 90 million Millennial eligible voters should translate into 52 million Millennial votes, representing 36 percent of all votes cast in that election.

[...]

Obama’s support among 18- to 29-year-old Millennials was remarkably broad, extending across racial barriers. He carried not just Hispanic 18- to 29-year-olds (76-19) and black 18- to 29-year-olds (95-4), but also white 18- to 29-year-olds (54-44). Obama’s 10-point advantage among white 18- to 29-year-olds contrasted starkly with his 15-point deficit among older whites and, compared to 2004, represented a 21-point shift toward progressives among this group.

Not only did Obama win white Millennials overall, but he also won both white Millennial college graduate and noncollege voters (by 16 and 6 points respectively9). Some may question the significance of the latter finding since the 18- to 29-year-old noncollege white group contains a considerable proportion of students and is therefore a flawed representation of the young white working class. However, if analysis is confined to 25-to 29-year-olds to eliminate the problem of mixing students on track for a four-year degree with other white noncollege youth, the results are even stronger. Obama won 25-to 29-year-old white noncollege voters by 12 points, 54-42, a stunning 40-point swing relative to Kerry’s 35-63 drubbing among the same group in 2004.

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Millennials’ voting inclinations—hugely important in this election—could become even more so over time. If Millennials remain oriented as they are and maintain the generational consistency they have shown so far, the simple process of generational replacement—more Millennials moving into the electorate and taking the place of older voters—could increase progressives’ margin over conservatives by an additional two and a half percentage points in 2012 and then by another two and a half points in 2016. It appears that the Millennial generation’s progressive impact on voting may not yet have reached its peak.

With numbers like those, the GOP could well be a permanent rump party by the end of the next decade.

Facing such a daunting challenge, I applaud the efforts of Marks and other young Republicans to pressure the GOP to become a more youth-inclusive party. And despite my personal partisanship, I think it would be a great day for our democracy to see both the Democrats and Republicans competing fiercely for the loyalties of young voters. However, the GOP's problems with Millennials go far deeper than the lack of outreach lamented by Marks, or even "branding" problems often quoted by young Republicans like Meghan McCain. There are real, substantive policy differences between the GOP in Millennials.

To paraphrase, it's the substance, stupid.

On almost every single issue, the values and policy positions of Millennials are often directly in opposition to some of the major planks of the Republican Party platform. Here are just two of the most glaring examples:

The Culture War is Dead:

Increased religious diversity, particularly the rise of seculars, is leading Millennials toward a more tolerant, less culturally divisive politics. In the PSP youth survey, 64 percent agreed that “religious faith should focus more on promoting tolerance, social justice, and peace in society, and less on opposing abortion or gay rights.” Just 19 percent disagreed. And, by 54 to 29 percent, Millennials endorsed the idea that, “Our country has gone too far in mixing politics and religion and forcing religious values on people.”

These sentiments suggest that even where Millennials’ views are not noticeably more progressive than older generations—abortion is the chief example—they are unlikely to be attracted to culture wars-style politics. This is particularly true of Hispanics, whose overall cultural outlook—despite conservative views on some specific issues such as abortion— is more progressive than generally supposed. Indeed, in the PSP youth survey, Hispanic Millennials actually had the highest average score of all racial groups on a 10-item progressive cultural index. Hispanics are also much less likely than whites to vote on the basis of cultural issues, even where they do hold conservative views.

An Affirmative Role for Government:

Millennials, more so than other generations, support a stronger role for government, whether to make the economy work better, help those in need, provide more services, or just do more. When asked in the 2008 National Election Survey—a long-running academic survey of political attitudes conducted by the University of Michigan—whether the government should provide more or fewer services, nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of Millennials supported increased government services, compared to 55 percent of 30- to 59-year-olds and 46 percent of respondents over 60 years of age. Millennials also came out strongly in support of more government when asked to choose between two alternatives: “the less government the better” or “there are more things that government should be doing.” Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of Millennial voters in 2008 supported the latter assertion that there is more that government should be doing, compared to 69 percent of 30- to 59-year-olds and 58 percent of people over 60 years of age.

Millennials decisively reject the conservative viewpoint that government is the problem and that free markets always produce the best results for society. Instead they support a more balanced approach to the economy. When asked in the 2008 NES whether we need a strong government to handle today’s complex economic problems or whether the free market can handle these problems without government involvement, Millennials, by a margin of 78 to 22 percent, demonstrated an overwhelming preference for strong government. Both 30- to 59-year-olds (75 percent) and respondents over the age of 60 (66 percent) also favor strong government over a strict free market approach, but not at such a high level.

These are just two among the dozens of examples listed in the CAP report. On issue after issue - health care reform, energy/climate change, labor unions - Millinnials hold views that are vastly more progressive than those of previous generations, and are often in direct opposition to those currently championed by the Republican Party.

Outreach and better branding can only get you so far. Truly engaging more than a fraction of Millennials in the Republican Party will require nothing less than a complete rethinking of what it means to be a conservative and a Republican. Is the GOP really ready for that? I don't think so.

Here's video of a panel hosted by Campus Progress asking the question, "Are young people political game changers?" The panel features Kat Barr, Political Outreach Director of Rock the Vote, Amanda Carpenter, with Townhall.com, Rev. Lennox Yearwood from the Hip Hop Caucus, and David Madland, Director of the American Worker Project, Center for American Progress. It's moderated by Erica Williams of Campus Progress.

Here's three things worth looking at, but not really meriting a full blog post:

• Kay Steiger at Pushback reminds us that today is veterans day with this excellent post about three major veterans issues.
• The Center for American Progress takes note of Millennials' pro-government philosophy and concern with the economy. There's no new data here, but this report does pull together the most relevant strands from a variety of reports they issued earlier in the year. It's a good Cliff's Note/summary of all that work.
• Black Youth Vote is prepping for a conference in D.C. this week to "train young leaders and activists on how to impact public policy and hold elected officials accountable." BYV is a strange group to me. They're never very high on my radar and I don't know a thing about what they did this year. They are very disconnected from the other threads of youth organizing - at least the ones that I'm familiar with. Yet they always pop their heads back up now and again. Maybe they need a better communications team.
• The Center for Economic and Policy Research has done a good job debunking the anti-social safety net film IOUSA. Here's their latest effort.

The Center for American Progress recently released a report titled "Millennial Economics: It Don't Matter If You're Black or White." The report, written by Amanda Logan and David Madland, describes the Millennial Generation's view on economic policy as increasingly homogenous across racial lines.

On a range of economic issues—from support for universal health care and labor unions to assistance for the needy—minorities in the Millennial Generation are generally more progressive than whites of the same age. Young blacks and Hispanics are more likely than young whites to believe that the government can be a force for good in the economy, and that labor unions are necessary to ensure strong and sustainable economic growth, as well as support increased investments in health care, education, and other areas.

Perhaps the most unique trait of the Millennial Generation is that the gap between young minorities and young whites is shrinking. Not only are young adults today more progressive than previous generations—as a previous Center for American Progress report, “The Progressive Generation,” found—but they are more likely to hold similar views than previous generations of young adults. Young whites today are closing the progressive gap with minorities on most of the economic issues we examined—and on some issues have become more progressive.

So what?

Well one thing is obvious: as we move into the future, Millennials are in the process of solidifying their liberalism. The demographics speak to this solidification:

• Over the past 20 years, an average of 86 percent of blacks aged 18 to 29 agreed that labor unions are necessary to protect workers, while 72 percent of young whites agreed—a
  14 percentage-point progressive gap.
• Today the gap is just 2 percentage points. Forty-six percent of young Hispanics over the past two decades believed it is the gov- ernment’s responsibility to ensure a good job and standard of living for all, while just 35 percent of young whites did—a gap of 11 percentage points. Today, the gap is less than 6 percentage points.

Matt Zeitlin from pushback makes the relevant observation: -- white Millennials are diverging from their parents' more conservative views, while minority Millennials are maintaining the already liberal viewpoints of their parents. With a more united, progressive, and engaged Millennial generation, there's reason for Millennial activists and bloggers to be optimistic. Thanks to Matthew Yglesias, here's a chart demonstrating the Millennials' convergence on the issue of health care compared to older generations of Americans:

Furthermore, Millennials are breaking the lock Republicans have put on the political dialogue thanks to their devotion to quality of life issues. In 1968, Nixon succeeded in getting many whites to vote against their fears and not for their economic quality of life. In subsequent elections, Americans held political views that were formed along cultural fault lines; the Republican Party and its candidates seized on Nixon's example and for decades were successful in setting up sideshow after sideshow to distract Americans from their failed economic philosophy. But eventually it all catches up. And with the political awakening of the Millennials, that time is now for the GOP.

Here we have a generation focused on progress. Their pragmatic approach toward making things better undermines the GOP's effort to distract them with things like tales of people named William Ayers. A focus on the economy and quality of life issues is far more appropriate for meritocratic Millennials than the latest symbol forming a battleground for a Boomer-style ideological struggle. So now that economic issues are the name of the game, the liberal viewpoints of the Millennials have even greater weight.

Add into that the noted tolerance of Millennials on social issues, and the possibility of building a solid political coalition increases even more. The political awakening of Millennials is occurring at just the time we as a society need it.

Late last week, I got an email from Project Phin, announcing that they would be featured on Jay Leno's Tonight Show in a segment with Matt Damon, who is a supporter. Now, you probably have the same question I did - what the hell is Project Phin? Totally normal reaction.

Turns out I already knew what it was - a flex fuel/CAFE standard campaign from the Center for American Progress Action Fund - but I'd forgotten because the campaign was so confusing and quite frankly bizarre. Ignoring the question of whether or not young people actually watch Jay Leno (or the follow-up question of whether an over 30 audience would find any appeal in the Project Phin campaign), I went back to the site to give it another look.

On second glance, the campaign is interesting. They've got a short mockumentary in 7 parts (2-5 minutes each) about some boob's (Phin Sawyer) quest to create his own Flex Fuel/CAFE standards campaign. The videos are attached to a letter-writing campaign directed at Congress, and there are also FaceBook and MySpace groups advertising the project on SocNets. Sitting through a 25 minute mockumentary (even a relatively good one) is a significant investment of time - and I had to force myself to sit through at least 4 of the videos before I started to warm up to the campaign - but by the time I finished, my skepticism was overcome and I found the campaign to be both amusing and also somewhat inspirational.

So how are they doing? Here's the numbers they are publicizing:

Now onto the Project Phin numbers: You watched the videos more than 200,000 times. Wow! And that doesn't include the people who saw the Damon clip on TV during the Tonight Show. You sent more than 20,000 messages to Congress and hundreds of letters to the editors of newspapers around the country. Nearly 1,500 of you have joined Phin's Facebook profile and group and his MySpace communities so far, and you viewed Phin's MySpace blog over 6,000 times.

It's not clear to me that 200,000 is a total for each video, or needs to be divided by 7, which would be a solid though less impressive 28,500 for each video. Since 20,000 letters were sent, I actually find this to be more likely. Regardless, the numbers are not at all shabby, and clearly the videos are hitting a nerve with some people.

The FaceBook and MySpace campaign, not so much. The number of friends on both communities is small (and composed of a lot of green organizations). The real question in measuring the effectiveness of the campaign on SocNets is "are people moving from MySpace/FaceBook to the letter writing tool?" I don't know that they are in any significant number. I also thought it was strange that there was no Project Phin Cause App or Change.org App. Global warming and energy issue groups do better on those Apps than most any other topic, and can help drive traffic to action items. That might have been a good strategy for Project Phin.

Maybe it's proof that I'm starting to age out of this target demographic that I didn't really get hooked by the campaign when I first heard about it (truth be told, I found their slogan - Flex my Fuel, Clean My Ride - to be a much better hook). But great job to the folks at CAP for trying to think outside the box and putting together what has obviously been a successful summer campaign to raise awareness and generate activism around a cleaner, more progressive energy policy.