Democracy Corps

I've long worried that John McCain could be, as Arianna Huffington put it yesterday at the Personal Democracy Forum conference, a "Trojan Horse" candidate for the GOP. His perceived status as a maverick and his cultural savvy has long inoculated him from the troubles plaguing the Republican Party and boosted his image among young voters. Out of all the GOP contenders, he seemed most capable of reviving the Republican brand among a generation trending heavily Democratic.

According to a new poll by Democracy Corps, that image of McCain the Maverick has shattered.

Since Democracy Corps' last survey in April, John McCain's favorable ratings among young voters has dropped from 34 to 30%, and his unfavorable ratings have jumped over ten points, rising from 37 to 49%. Two of the supposedly biggest advantages a McCain candidacy brings to the GOP - his popularity with independents and his "liberal" views on immigration reform - also took serious hits in recent months. Among independent young voters, McCain's unfavorable rating nearly doubled, rising from 27% in April to 49% in June, and among Hispanics his unfavorable rating is now a whopping 70%. Apparently McCain's "principled" stand on immigration during the primaries was not enough to pull Hispanics back towards the Republican Party.

According to the report, McCain's favorable/unforable numbers now mirror those of the Republican Party, which has seen it's brand collapse among young voters in the past two years:

In a head to head match-up against Barack Obama, McCain loses the youth vote 66 - 33% among likely voters, a larger margin than Democrats enjoyed during the wave election of 2006.

What happened to McCain the Maverick? How did his highly-cultivated independent brand crash so fast?

Democracy Corps points to the transformation of McCain into "McSame," a typical politician tied to the failures of the Bush Presidency and the Republican Party. That notion has gained great traction in recent months, in particular around the issues of Iraq and the economy, the two most pressing issues in the eyes of young voters and two areas in which McCain is most tightly tied to the policies of the Bush Administration and the GOP.

According to Democracy Corps, when McCain's policies on Iraq and the economy are laid before young voters, along with potential consequences for young Americans, a majority of young voters (~60 - 65%) express serious to very serious doubts about McCain's candidacy. As long as McCain holds policy positions simlar to Bush and the GOP on those two major policy issues, and as long as Democrats, bloggers, and activists continue to explain the consequences of those policies to young voters, it's hard to see how McCain can recover his maverick status and gain ground among young voters.

Democracy Corps has released the latest edition in their "Youth for the Win" young voter polls: The Rising Wave Among Young People. The poll tracks youth involvement and measures youth support for the two candidates. Most of the information deals with McCain and the continued collapse of the Republican brand among young people. I'll have a separate post on that later today. Right now I want to focus on Democracy Corps' findings re: Senator Obama.

Democracy Corps notes that Senator Obama is expanding his lead over McCain among young voters and even exceeding the levels of youth support Democrats enjoyed during the 2006 wave elections. Significantly, he is also quickly consolidating the Democratic base and pulling in most of Clinton's core youth support:

Barack Obama now holds a 60 to 33 percent lead over John McCain with young people in this country. Among young voters most likely to vote, this lead jumps to 66 – 33 percent. Historically, these margins exceed Kerry’s showing in 2004 (54 – 45 percent) and echo the young people’s revolt against the Republican Congress in 2006 (60 – 38 percent). In claiming the nomination, Obama managed to consolidate Democrats and improve his showing among voting blocs that, at the national level, often preferred Hillary Clinton.

In an incredibly short amount of time, Obama has made double digit gains among unmarried women and Hispanics, and his favorability ratings have seen similar jumps. Democracy Corps notes that he still has ground to gain among young, married white women and "older" (24 - 29) white women, but beyond that he is quickly approaching the ceiling in terms of consolidating Democratic youth support. After that, any gains among young voters will be made among independents or Republicans dissatisfied with McCain (a growing group, as we'll see later).

So much for the divided Democratic Party.

Just before the Obama campaign announced their intention to defund the left, Democracy Corps issues the second part of their new youth polling series: Youth for the Win! The report examines the youth electorate, identifies the opportunities and challenges facing Democrats in "maximizing the youth vote" in 2008, and calls on Democrats to do everything in our power to not let this demographic advantage go to waste.

There are four main takeaways from the poll:

1. Democrats maintain large and growing leads among young voters at the polls
2. Obama has the most support among all remaining candidates (even McCain), and he actually polls almost as well as the "Generic" Democrat numbers.
3. Winning over Clinton supporters will be a challenge for Obama
4. McCain has lower youth support, but is not yet identified with the Republican brand among young voters.

Affirming the obvious, the report shows rising youth support at the polls for Democrats, with most support this cycle going towards Senator Obama:

Obama will face two challenges in maximizing youth turnout this year. The first will be within his own party. Clinton supporters are far more likely to declare that they will not vote in November if Sen. Clinton is not the nominee:

Now, Obama has won the youth vote in most states by a landslide, but in a year of record youth turnout, Clintons numbers are still very very respectable. That's a lot of lost votes and that means Obama will have much shorter coattail for down-ballot candidates to ride. Bridges will need to be built/mended among Clinton's youth supporters in the coming months OR their activism will need to be channeled into forms of engagement aside from the Obama campaign (e.g. youth groups working at the state and local level).

The second challenge Obama faces in maximizing the youth vote for Democratic advantage in November comes from McCain. Polling shows that among young voters, McCain is not yet associated with the tarnished Republican brand. He's not popular by any means, but he should be far more unpopular considering his support for Republican policies.

With some serious help from the media, McCain has an image that distances him from traditional Republicans, and -- I've said it before, but I'll say it again -- he's skilled at playing the culture card to increase that "independent" image. He had a great turn on the Daily Show just last week in which Stewart let him slide on every major issue, and he'll be hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend. Now, that might seem like so much pandering to young people, but it's the type of pandering that most high-level Republicans are loathe to do.

The Obama campaign is going to need to tie McCain tightly to the Republican brand among young voters. Knowing their preference to "not go negative," I'm a little afraid that they won't be up to this task. Yet another reason why outside organizations can be a useful piece of progressive infrastructure.

Democracy Corp has issued a new poll of young voters: Youth for the Win (pd). The polls, conducted over landline, cellphone, and via the internet, treads a lot of old ground and I won't rehash it all here, but I do want to pull out a few interesting bits that put hard numbers to current memes about youth engagement and mark out distinctions that have thus far been overlooked.

First, some new stats on increased participation:

In early 2008 Democratic primaries, young people increased their participation by an astonishing 88 percent. Republican involvement also improved, though far less dramatically (by 7 percent).

This is great news for the Democrats. As the following graph illustrates, this lopsided increase in participation translates into a huge partisan advantage at the ballot box. The Democrats now have an advantage among young voters not seen in years, and potentially not since 1992:

The poll provides some interesting context as to what criteria these new voters are using to determine how to cast their ballots. To a much greater degree than among Obama supporters, it appears that Clinton supporters are engaging in identity politics. That makes sense. These are Millennials, and they are supposed to be a generation that rejects the identity politics and culture war frames of the past. Add on to that the fact that Sen. Obama is making a specific appeal to leave behind identity politics and it stands to reason that his supporters would not describe their support or engagement in those terms.

Even so, I'm a little surprised to see the numbers so high on the part of Sen. Clinton's supporters. Perhaps Clinton's supporters are those few of the younger generation who side with older feminists on the issue of the need to elect a woman President? If so, this seems to turn on its head the meme that Obama voters are casting their ballots based on the person(ality), not the issues. To the contrary, it would appear as if it is Clinton voters who are most likely to fit that description.

It's worth noting that this is the second poll to suggest that the cult of personality meme dogging Obama supporters is off-base. A Rock the Vote showed similar findings disputing that claim back in February.

I've said this before, but in light of yesterday's post about Facebook "Jumping the Shark," I thought it worth saying yet again - social networks are not the killer app for reaching young people, and the Democracy Corps poll underscores this. Yes, social networks can enable young people to do amazing things and compete in the political marketplace against much bigger players, but they are not a mass-marketing tool for for campaigns to reach young people.

When it comes to reaching young people online, it's important to remember that "internet" does not = "social networks." The internet is a pretty big place, and major content providers like Google News, CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream news sites get a lot of traffic from young people. Attaining earned media coverage on those sites - and making sure that coverage is at times youth-oriented - can go a long way in spreading a campaign message among Millennials.

Where social networks come into play is in organizing die-hard supporters and leveraging the most gain out of their involvement (see: 2006 immigrant rallies; Students for Barack Obama). As Colin Delaney of ePolitics notes, this is not a mass media strategy. It is a much more time and resource intensive peer-to-peer strategy. It is just as important, and at times intensely more powerful than a mass-media strategy, but it is a distinct tool in the organizers toolbox and should be regarded as such.

Finally, the poll makes clear that while the Internet is a very important tool and public information space, it is still just one of a few places where campaigns can reach a mass-market youth audience. It is not the only one by any means. Local and national television still play a significant role in informing and influencing young people, which means that campaigns need to talk about youth issues and to young people at their events on the stump. That kind of earned media gets carried on broadcast and cable networks where it is watched by a significant number young people who will then talk to their friends.

Earlier this week I posted about a new Democracy Corps report showing that the Republican brand had crashed among Millennials. Well the conservatives are starting to respond, and the racism is flying like mad:

Read the report in full, however, and you come across an interesting nugget on page 6: White young people continue to favor Republicans by a thin but real margin of 2 points. The Democrats owe their advantage among youth to a huge lead among young African-Americans (78 points) - and a very large lead (43 points) among Hispanics.

In the past, Republicans could win elections despite their unpopularity among ethnic minorities. But with the huge surge of immigration since 1980 - and especially since 2000 - the voting map of the United States has been redrawn in ways inherently deeply unfavorable to the GOP. If Republicans face an inhospitable future after 2008, we will hear much of the dreadful legacy of George W. Bush on social issues, the war, the environment, etc. But Greenberg's own work makes clear that these issues matter relatively little.

(Only 28% of young voters would respond positively to an anti-religious-right message, for example: see page 11.)

No, the legacy that will damage his party is the legacy of immigration non-enforcement. This has imported a large new community of people who are both economically struggling (and thus open to Democratic arguments) but who lack deep attachment to the American nation (and who are thus immune to the most potent of Republican appeals). It is these voters who will sway elections in future. And thanks to this president's immigration policies, there are going to be a lot more of them than there might otherwise have been.

Awesome idea. Kick those anti-American wetbacks (read: naturalized citizens and first generation Americans who vote Democratic) out so the white man can rule supreme one more.

Great strategy. Let me know if that pans out for ya.

Update: Rick Perlstein tears Frum apart on similar grounds.

A new research report (pdf) from Democracy Corps outlines in exquisite detail (god I love schadenfreude) the collapse of the "Republican" brand among young people:

Here's some other interesting findings:

• A generic Democrat currently beats a generic Republican 57 - 39%.
• In the more specific showdown of Guiliani vs. Obama or Clinton (the three most popular candidates among young voters), the Democratic lead among likely voters narrows only slightly to 55 - 40% .
• They study marks pocketbook issues - jobs, debt, the economy, etc. - as the most important issues to young voters. Even more important than the war, Daruf, or climate change. Democrats will need to speak to - and produce results on - these issues if they are to maintain this advantage and, indeed, potentially increase it. Fwiw, I don't know that I buy this. Democrats just ushered through the biggest college assistance bill since the G.I. Bill, but Congressional approval is still in the tank. Economic issues may rank highest in a survey, but Iraq is the most visible issue in the media. W/o progress in Iraq, do domestic policy victories matter?
• The authors note that Democrats' advantage is the result of the diverse makeup of the Millennial generation. Among young white males, the Republicans still hold an advantage over Democrats.

More on the candidates and specific Demographic breakdowns:

There's lots more to look at in this study, but I'm banging up against some book deadlines and the looming Yearly Kos convention, so won't really have the time to dig deeper. But I encourage everyone to check it out. It's a pretty short, but info-packed, report.

I dont' have time for analysis. I'm about to run out the door to that DMI event, but here's the youth breakout from Democracy Corps' latest Battleground Survey. (pdf) I'm sure Young Voter Strategies will have a good analysis soon enough, and I'll link to that when it goes up.

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