NDN Blog

There’s Always A Generation Gap If You Know Where to Look

A recent Pew Research Center survey suggests that generational conflict in the U.S. has significantly declined in the 40 years since Woodstock, NY symbolized the sharp differences between the Baby Boom Generation (born 1946-1964) and its elders. A plurality (38%) believes that strife between the generations has diminished since the late 1960's and early 1970s. Boomers are especially likely to believe that inter-generational strife is less severe than it was four decades ago: 43% of them believe it has declined. Now only a quarter (26%) of Americans perceive that there are very strong or strong conflicts between young people and older people, far less than those detecting significant discord between immigrants and people born in the United States (55%), rich and poor people (47%) and blacks and whites (39%).

But, as generational theorists, William Strauss and Neil Howe indicate, generational conflict, like the poor, is always with us. A deeper analysis of the Pew data suggests that what has changed is not so much the fact of generational conflict, but its tone. Young people and their elders may not shout at one another across the generation gap as they did four decades ago, but they still appear to differ in many ways.

Value/Element

Young and older people different

Young and older people similar

Way they use computers/new technology

86%

10%

Music they like

86%

12%

Their work ethic

80%

16%

Their moral values

80%

16%

Respect they show others

78%

18%

Their political views

73%

19%

Their attitudes toward different races and groups

70%

21%

Their religious beliefs

68%

23%

The American public is right in perceiving a continuing generational conflict, at least with regard to politics. Today's young people, the Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003) are sharply distinctive from older generations in their political attitudes, identifications, and behavior. These differences will strongly benefit the Democrats and the progressive movement, but only both of those forces have the foresight and courage to take advantage of the opportunity that the emerging Millennial Generation offers. The Democratic Party and Barack Obama clearly benefitted from it in 2006 and 2008 winning first a large, presumably unassailable, majority in both houses of Congress and later the White House. Since then, however, the Democrats seem intent on frittering away the sizeable gift that the electorate, led by the Millennials, has given them.

The stakes in firmly capturing the loyalties of the Millennial Generation couldn't be higher. At 95 million, Millennials are the largest generation in American history. There are now 17 million more Millennials than there are surviving Baby Boomers and 27 million more of them than there are members of Generation X (born 1965-1981), the relatively small generation between Boomers and Millennials. In 2008, when only 40% of Millennials were eligible to vote, they accounted for about 17% of the electorate. In 2012, when Barack Obama runs for reelection, about 60% of Millennials will be old enough to vote and they will comprise nearly a quarter of the electorate. By 2020, when virtually all members of the generation will be at least 18 years old, more than one in three voters will be a Millennial. This will put Millennials in position to dominate American politics, as has no other generation before them.

So far, by any measure, the Millennial Generation has been solidly liberal and Democratic. In 2008 Millennials voted for Barack Obama over John McCain 66% to 32%, accounting for about 80% of the president's popular vote majority and converting what would have been a narrow win into a solid one. Millennials also gave Democratic congressional candidates almost the same level of support that they gave Obama (66% vs. 34%). And, as indicated in a June 2009 Pew survey, Millennials identify or lean to the Democrats over the Republicans by nearly 2:1.

 

Millennials

Generation X

Baby Boomers

Silent and older generations

Democrat/lean Democrat

56%

50%

44%

50%

Independent not leaning to a party

8%

8%

10%

6%

Republican/lean Republican

30%

34%

41%

36%

Finally, Millennials are the first generation in at least four to contain a greater number of self-perceived liberals than conservatives.

In their attitudes, Millennials are "liberal interventionists" in the economy, "tolerant non-meddlers" on social issues, and "activist multilateralists" in international affairs.

 

Millennials

Older Generations

Strongly concerned that government will become too involved in health care

36%

47%

Agree that government regulation of business does more harm than good

51%

56%

Agree free market economy needs government regulation to serve the public interest

69%

61%

Agree that federal government controls too much of our daily lives

48%

56%

Agree when something is run by government it is usually wasteful and inefficient

42%

61%

Agree government is run for the benefit of all

60%

46%

Agree stricter laws and regulations needed to protect the environment

47%

39%

Agree government investment needed to develop new energy technology

68%

56%

Agree that government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep

69%

59%

Agree that immigrants threaten American values and customs

35%

55%

Agree that undocumented immigrants should be allowed to gain legal status

71%

62%

Agree that free trade agreements like NAFTA are a good thing

61%

40%

Agree that peace best assured through military strength

39%

58%

Completely disagree that women should return to their traditional place in society

67%

51%

Decades of political research indicates that, for most people, once attitudes, identifications, and behaviors like these are formed during youth they tend to remain in force for the rest of their lives. Coupled with the sheer size of the Millennial Generation, this gives the Democratic Party an opportunity to dominate American politics for at least the next four decades.

Are Barack Obama and the Democratic Party taking advantage of this opportunity and maintaining the loyalty of the Millennial Generation, especially during the past several months as the president's approval rating has declined? The picture is mixed. On the one hand, as Daily Kos tracking surveys data indicate, Obama and his party have lost ground, albeit much less sharply, among Millennials just as they have among the electorate as a whole. Since January, favorable opinions of the president have fallen by 17-percentage points among all voters, but only by five points among Millennials. Similarly, positive attitudes toward the Democratic Party have declined by 12 points within the entire electorate, but by just two among Millennials. At the same time, Millennials remain significantly more positive toward Barack Obama and the Democratic Party than older generations.

Moreover, Democratic losses among Millennials (indeed among all voters) have not been matched by Republican gains. In fact, the GOP has lost more ground since the first days of the Obama administration than either the president or the Democratic Party. Since January positive impressions of the GOP have been cut in half among all voters and, among Millennials, have dwindled to nearly the vanishing point (only 4%).

 

Total Electorate / Millennials January

Total Electorate / Millennials March

Total Electorate / Millennials May

Total Electorate / Millennials July

Total Electorate / Millennials August

Favorable opinions of Barack Obama

77% / 87%

68 / 83%

68% / 83%

62% / 82%

60% / 82%

Favorable opinions of the Democratic Party

57% / 63%

55% / 64%

52% / 63%

48% / 62%

45% / 61%

Favorable opinions of the Republican Party

34% / 26%

29% / 12%

20% / 6%

21% / 6%

17% / 4%

All of this raises the question of why the administration and congressional Democrats have persisted in their well-intentioned, but now clearly ill-advised and so-far never ending effort to enlist significant Republican support on virtually all important parts of President Obama's legislative program.

The directive delivered to Democrats by voters last November couldn't have been clearer. A post-election CNN survey indicated that 59% of the electorate favored the idea of the Democrats controlling both elective branches of the federal government. Only 38% said that one-party rule was a bad idea. A Wall Street Journal poll completed at the same time confirmed those results and presented the rationale for them: when the same party controls both Congress and the presidency, "it will end gridlock in Washington and things will get done."

In spite of this, Democrats in Washington have continued to pursue the chimera of bipartisanship. The response from across the aisle was a political version of Mohammed Ali's "rope-a-dope" strategy: induce the opponent to expend major energy, accomplish nothing, and exhaust himself in the process. This recently reached the ultimate absurdity when the GOP's most visible health insurance reform negotiator in the Senate, Iowa's Chuck Grassley, said that he wouldn't vote for a bill that he himself had negotiated except in the very unlikely event that large numbers of his fellow Republicans would join him. That is why rumors that the administration and congressional Democrats may now finally be willing to go it alone in passing health care insurance are encouraging. It's been a hard lesson to learn, but better late than never.

However, to avoid missteps in the future, the Bible (and election and poll results) offers a plan: "a child shall lead them" and "out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom." The answer is with the emerging liberal and Democratic Millennial Generation on the youthful side of today's version of the generation gap. If Democrats and progressives go there, they will prosper now and in the future.

It's Not Over Until It's Over

Recently the attention of the Washington punditry has focused on the possibility of Republican gains in next year's midterm elections. This focus stems from the release of several polls suggesting movement toward the GOP on the so-called "generic ballot" question measuring the intention of survey respondents to vote for or prefer the congressional candidates of one party over the other. An article by the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, headlined "The Generic Ballot, 2010, and a Republican resurgence?" neatly summarizes the issue. But, at this point, 15 months before the elections, the answer to Cillizza's question is neither clear nor obvious.

In fact, even the relative strength of the two parties on the generic ballot question is far from certain. Rasmussen, which consistently has the greatest Republican tilt in its results of any public polling firm, gives the GOP a 5-percentage point edge on its generic ballot question. The Daily Kos weekly tracking survey, which leans toward the Democrats in its findings about as consistently as Rasmussen does toward the Republicans, shows the Democrats with a 10-point margin. Falling in between are surveys conducted by Democrat Peter Hart and Republican Bill McInturff for NBC and the Wall Street Journal and Stan Greenberg for NPR. The Hart-McInturff survey gives the Democrats a 46% to 39% lead. Greenberg portrays the race as essentially even, giving the GOP a statistically insignificant 43% vs. 42% edge.

So where does the contest really stand? On the one hand, as the party out-of-power in both elective branches of the national government, history should help the Republicans. On the other, recent changes in the demography, attitudes, and identifications of the electorate suggest that Democrats may be in better shape to withstand the GOP assault than incumbent parties often are. We can't be sure yet exactly how these strengths and weaknesses will be arrayed in the months ahead, but we do have a clear picture of the advantages and disadvantages of the two parties going forward.

Republican Advantages

  • History. The GOP does have history on its side. Parties positioned as the Republicans are now, controlling neither the White House nor Congress, almost invariably add congressional seats in midterm elections. Only twice since 1900 has the president's party made gains in the first midterm election of his administration-1934 and 2002. In the former, the electorate endorsed Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal economic policies and the Democrats gained 9 seats in the House. In the latter, in response to George W. Bush's leadership after 9/11 the GOP picked up 8 new House seats. Nate Silver points out that since World War II the president's party has lost an average of 24 House seats in midterm elections. Stuart Rothenberg says that such averages are meaningless because they disguise major variations in results. Regardless, midterm gains by the "out" party are the rule. If history is a guide, the GOP should be in position to retake some of the congressional seats it lost in 2006 and 2008.
  • The Democrats have more ground and rougher terrain to defend than the Republicans. The Democrats gained more than 50 House seats in 2006, 2008, and subsequent off year elections. Many of these were in Midwestern and Southern rural and small town districts that frequently preferred Republican presidential candidates in previous elections. Of the 256 House districts currently held by Democrats, John McCain carried nearly one in five (49) in 2008, winning 23 by greater than 10-percentage points. The members who represent such districts are likely to be most vulnerable to GOP challenges next year and would benefit from a successful Obama presidency. But these numbers do explain the reticence of many moderate and conservative Democrats to wholeheartedly support the president's program.
  • Declines in President Obama's approval ratings. In six national surveys completed since July 26, Barack Obama's job approval rating averaged 55%. This is a slight uptick in his marks since mid-month and puts them right at the level Gallup uses to designate a presidential honeymoon. If Obama's approval marks stay at or just above that level through the end of the summer, they would give him one of the longer presidential honeymoons in Gallup Poll history. However, they would still be below the 65% level that Nate Silver's statistical calculations say would be necessary to avoid Democratic losses in 2010. Scientific survey research had not yet been developed in 1934, so it is impossible to know what FDR's approval rating was when the Democrats made their rare gains that year. But, George W. Bush's positive job performance mark was indeed that high when the GOP gained congressional seats in November 2002. The outcome of the 2010 midterm elections may ultimately hinge on how high Barack Obama's job approval ratings are in the months ahead. Fortunately for Democrats there are positive factors that could maintain the president's marks at a solid level.

Democratic Advantages

  • Demographic change. The U.S. population is very different than it was when the GOP made its congressional gains in 2002. These demographic changes work to the advantage of the Democratic Party. A new civic generation, the Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003 is emerging. Millennials are the largest generation in U.S. history. They comprised 17% of the electorate in 2008, as large a share of the vote as that of senior citizens, and will contribute 20% in 2010.  The American electorate is also increasingly diverse: greater than a quarter of the 2008 electorate was non-white, about double the percentage of just two or three decades earlier. These newcomers to the electorate are solidly Democratic. Millennials contributed 80% of Barack Obama's 2008 popular vote, identify as Democrats by a greater than 2:1 margin, and are the first generation in at least four to contain more self-perceive liberals than conservatives. Upwards of 90% of African-Americans and more than two-thirds of Latinos and Asians opted for Obama over John McCain last year. There is nothing to indicate that the strong Democratic loyalties of any of these expanding groups are diminishing. In the latest Daily Kos generic ballot, Millennials prefer the Democrats by 4.5:1. African-Americans do so by 8.5:1, Latinos by more than 2.6:1, and Asians by 3:1.
  • Changes in Party Identification. In 2002, when the Republicans made midterm history, the two parties were tied in party identification (43% each in Pew Research Center surveys). Now, in large part due to the demographic changes just described, the Democrats are clearly the majority party. Currently the Democratic edge is about 16 percentage points. Overall, a bit more than half of the electorate identifies with or leans to the Democrats while around a third are Republicans or lean to the GOP. The Daily Kos survey indicates that about 80% of both Democratic and Republican identifiers want to see the party they prefer win Congress in 2010. The Democratic Party's edge in party ID gives it a built-in electoral advantage that fully accounts for its 10-point lead in the Daily Kos poll.
  • Continued diminution of the GOP brand. While Barack Obama's job performance ratings may have drifted downward somewhat during the past several months, there is little to indicate that the appeal of the Republican Party has grown correspondingly over the same period. In the recent Hart-McInturff survey, voters held positive over negative impressions of the Democratic Party by a 42% vs. 37% margin. By contrast, their attitudes toward the GOP were 28% positive as opposed to 41% negative. As the following table indicates, things were even worse for the Republicans in the Daily Kos tracker, in which Republicans trailed their Democratic counterparts in favorable evaluations by margins of between 2 and 4:1. If they persist, these weaker perceptions of the GOP could limit Republican gains in 2010.

Percentage holding favorable attitudes toward each of the following

 

Barack Obama (D)

62%

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D)

34%

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D)

32%

GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R)

18%

GOP House Minority Leader John Boehner (R)

13%

Congressional Democrats

41%

Congressional Republicans

10%

Democratic Party

45%

Republican Party

19%

  • The potential for a continued economic turnaround. In the end, nothing is likely to drive the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections more than voter feelings about the economy. Recent surveys have pointed to improved attitudes about the current state of the economy and increased optimism about the future. A CBS poll indicates that since mid-July the percentage believing that the U.S. economy is getting better has increased from 21% to 32%; the percentage saying it was declining fell from 33% to 22%. As a result, the number believing that the country is now on the right track grew from 35% to 42%. Barack Obama gets some credit for this improvement. A majority (51%, up three points) now approves of his handling of the economy and by a 56% to 25% margin voters believe that the President rather than congressional Republicans is likely to make the right economic decisions. The electorate is increasingly confident about the future. A solid majority (57%) believe that the economic stimulus package passed into law earlier this year has or will create a substantial number of new jobs and a clear plurality (44% in the Hart-McInturff survey) expects the economy to be better in a year than it is now, a number that is up from 38% in April.

The 2010 midterm elections are still 15 months away and making political predictions this far out is risky business. History alone would point to the potential for Republican gains next year. But, a continuation of economic optimism, linked to its significant advantages in demographics, party identification, and party imagery, may position the Democratic Party to overcome the difficulties that an incumbent majority normally confronts. If so, the Democrats could surprise a few D.C. pundits and, along the way, create a little history of their own.

A New Foreign Policy for a New Generation

While the recent focus of the inside-the-Beltway pundits and cable TV commentators has understandably been on the American economy, the prospects for health care reform and the president's approval ratings, there is a world beyond the District Line and the borders of the United States. And, in that broader world, by at least one measure, the ascension of Barack Obama to the presidency has been a big plus for America.

A recently released Pew survey indicates that in more than a dozen countries on virtually every continent public attitudes toward the United States have improved since Obama's inauguration, in many cases substantially. The following table compares favorable perceptions of the United States in 2008, the last year of the Bush administration, and in 2009, the first year of the Obama administration, in 24 foreign countries.

 

 

2008

2009

Change

France

42%

75%

+33

Germany

31%

64%

+33

Indonesia

37%

63%

+26

Spain

33%

58%

+25

Mexico

47%

69%

+22

Britain

53%

69%

+16

Argentina

22%

38%

+16

Nigeria

64%

79%

+15

Brazil

47%

61%

+14

Canada

55%

68%

+13

India

66%

76%

+10

Japan

50%

59%

+9

South Korea

70%

78%

+8

China

41%

47%

+6

Jordan

19%

25%

+6

Egypt

22%

27%

+5

Lebanon

51%

55%

+4

Kenya

87%

90%

+3

Palestinian Territories

13%

15%

+2

Turkey

12%

14%

+2

Poland

68%

67%

-1

Russia

46%

44%

-2

Pakistan

19%

16%

-3

Israel

78%

71%

-7

Positive perceptions of America increased by 10 percentage points or more in 11 of the 24 nations and by between 4 and 9 points in six others. Attitudes have improved most strikingly among America's Western European allies and our two North American neighbors, Mexico and Canada, and to a slightly lesser extent in Asian nations such as India, Japan, South Korea, and China. They have remained relatively stable in six countries and have fallen significantly in only one, Israel, where in spite of a seven percentage point decline, an overwhelming majority of Israelis (71%) remain favorable toward the U.S.

Ironically, contrary to persistent claims by some right wing dead enders that he is a secret Muslim, with one exception, since Obama took up residence at the White House favorable attitudes toward the United States increased least and remain lowest in Muslim countries. That one exception is Indonesia, his boyhood home, where positive perceptions of America increased by 26 percentage points between 2008 and 2009 (from 37% to 63%).

In part, of course, the president's style and persona have contributed to more favorable attitudes toward the United States. But also playing an important part is Barack Obama's approach to other countries and to foreign policy: publics in 23 of the 24 countries are more likely to have confidence in President Obama than in President Bush.

Obama's foreign policy approach is both shaped by and reflected in the beliefs, behavior and demographic characteristics of his strongest supporters, the Millennial Generation (Americans born 1982-2003).

In contrast to the generational stereotypes many people hold of them, Millennials are very much concerned about and connected to the world around them--more so, in fact, than many older Americans.  Responding to questions on foreign policy in a recent Pew Research Center survey, only 9% of Millennials were unable to express an opinion on how President Obama is doing in working with our allies, while almost a quarter of senior citizens had no opinion on the same subject. On the knotty question of Israeli/Palestinian relations, all but 7% of Millennials could tell survey researchers what they thought of American foreign policy in this area. On the other hand, 26% of senior citizens could not. 

The concern of Millennials with foreign affairs is shaped by the fact that they are the most diverse generation in American history. About 40% of them are non-white, most of Latino or Asian descent. Like their favorite president, one in five Millennials have at least one immigrant parent.

 In addition to its high level of concern and personal connection with other nations and international matters, the Millennial Generation's ability to make virtual friends on Facebook or Twitter Iranian protesters instantaneously provides a unique perspective on how to deal with America's foreign policy challenges. 

Perhaps most notable is how the Millennial Generation deals with the concept of "threats". A majority of Millennials does see Al Qaeda (59%), and the nuclear programs of North Korea (51%) and Iran (55%) as "major threats" to the United States, but by margins 15 to 20 points lower than older generations. Other more intractable but less direct security concerns, such as the drug trade in Mexico, China's emergence as a world power or conflicts in the Mideast ranging from Pakistan to Palestine, are not considered a major threat among a majority of Millennials. To be sure, some of these attitudes may reflect the inevitable naiveté of young people, but the underlying beliefs of Millennials suggest an alternative explanation.

Millennials have been taught since at least high school that the best way to solve a societal problem is act upon it locally, directly, and as a part of a larger group.  Tired of exalted rhetoric from Boomer leaders that rarely produced results and frustrated by their older Gen-X siblings lack of interest in pursuing any collective action to address broad social problems, Millennials have embraced individual initiative linked to community action. Eighty-five percent of college-age Millennials considers voluntary community service an effective way to solve the nation's problems. Virtually everyone in the generation  (94%) believes it's an effective way to deal with challenges in their local community. No wonder one of Barack Obama's first legislative successes, the Kennedy National Service Act, was in response to the desire to serve of his most loyal constituency, the Millennial Generation.

And, when it comes to public service Millennials are putting their money where their mouth is, although lack of opportunity in the private sector also could be accelerating this public service trend. Teach for America, which places new graduates in low-income schools, saw a 42% increase in applications over 2008. Around 35,000 students are now competing for about 4,000 slots. U.S. undergraduates ranked Teach for America and the Peace Corps among their top 10 "ideal employers," ahead of the likes of Nike or General Electric.

This penchant for public service shapes the beliefs of Millennials on how the United States should deal with the problems it faces around the world.  In last year's contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, Millennials believed Barack Obama was right and Hillary Clinton was wrong about whether to conduct direct talks with our enemies.   And they thought Sarah Palin was completely off base when she declared in her acceptance speech at the GOP convention that "the world is not a community and it doesn't need an organizer." In fact, Millennials believe that what the world needs most is thousands of community organizers, working on the ground to solve their own country's and the world's problems, linked electronically, of course, to friends around the globe.

Given the distinctions Millennials make between the seriousness of direct military threats, such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation, as opposed to squabbles over power or territory, America's foreign policy is likely to shift towards a more multi-lateral, institution-building focus as this generation assumes our country's leadership. This approach will only be a reflection of the core attitudes of the Millennial Generation as demonstrated in a May 2009 Pew Research Center survey in which only 39% of Millennials, in contrast to 58% of older generations, agree that U.S. military strength is the best way to maintain peace.

It may take a decade or two before we know precisely how the Millennial Generation's beliefs and behavior will impact America's overall foreign policy.  But in the interim we have already seen an initial indication that Millennial attitudes, carried forward in the international approach of the Obama administration, have led to more favorable attitudes toward the United States by people around the world. 

Act Like the Majority That You Are

In an April article, Jonathan Chait attempted to explain "Why the Democrats can't govern." This week, Jonathan Cohn focused on the same concern by asking the question, "Do the Dems have what it takes?"   Based on the results of several recent surveys showing a slow erosion in President Barack Obama's overall approval ratings and a more precipitous decline in his handling of specific issue areas such as the economy, the answer to this question seems far from certain.

Right now, the major inside-the-Beltway test case for measuring the success of the Obama administration and the Democrats is passage of comprehensive health care reform legislation in this session of Congress, preferably before midterm recess in August. According to E. J. Dionne, the key to doing this is for President Obama "to convince his fellow Democrats that they're in the majority." Dionne's focus is entirely on congressional Democrats, especially that wing of the party variously known as moderates, conservatives, or, in the words of Washington Post columnist, Harold Meyerson, the "can't do" Blue Dogs. But, the Democratic majority extends well beyond Washington and Congress to the American electorate. For the first time in decades, due largely to the emergence of the Millennial Generation (young Americans born 1982-2003), the Democratic Party holds a clear and decisive majority in party identification nationally, one that overwhelmingly favors, even demands, meaningful health care reform.

A mid-July Washington Post-ABC News poll that showed a decline in the president's overall job performance mark and indicated that only a bare plurality approved rather than disapproved of his handling of health care (49% vs. 44%), also found the Democrats with a clear 53% vs. 38% party ID edge over the GOP. This margin is virtually unchanged since the president was inaugurated in January or elected last November, but it is far different from the situation that existed during much of the past three decades. The last time Congress considered comprehensive health care reform in the early 1990s was during an era when neither party had a party identification majority and the margin between the two parties rarely exceeded four or five percentage points.

The current solid Democratic majority within the electorate provides support and, if necessary, political cover for health care reform. In part, this is true because Democrats, especially the young Millennials, who identified as Democrats over Republicans by nearly a 2:1 margin in a June Pew Research Center survey  (56% vs. 30%), are significantly less likely than Republicans and older Americans to even have health insurance. Nearly nine in ten Republican identifiers, but only eight of ten Democrats are now insured. That number falls to less than two in three among Millennials (63%). In stark contrast, 96% of senior citizens (who, of course, already participate in a federal health care program) have health insurance.

Because they are less often insured, and perhaps because whatever insurance coverage they do have may not be as comprehensive, Democrats have greater difficulty meeting and paying for their health care needs than Republicans. As the following table indicates, half of all Democratic identifiers (and non-aligned independents) say they have trouble paying for the cost of a major illness and for health insurance. About four in ten are concerned with having to pay a larger share of employer-provided health insurance and for routine medical care and prescription drugs.

Is each of the following a "major" problem for you and your family?

Democrat/lean Democrat

Independent

Republican/lean Republican

Paying cost of major illness

51%

54%

43%

Paying cost of health insurance

46%

52%

36%

Employer making you pay larger share of health insurance

38%

36%

30%

Paying for cost of routine medical care

38%

42%

27%

Paying for cost of prescription drugs

37%

42%

26%

As a result, it's hardly surprising that virtually all Democrats (91%) and 80% of Millennials, but barely half of Republican identifiers (54%) favor "changing the health care system in this country so that all Americans have health insurance that covers all medically necessary care" or that a majority of Democrats (51%) believes that the country is spending "too little" on health care while a plurality of Republicans (46%) believe we are spending "too much." Nor is it hard to understand why few Democrats and Millennials are put off by the possibility of greater federal government health care activity. In a May Pew survey, 69% of Republicans, but only 28% of Democrats and 36% of Millennials, professed concern about the government becoming too involved in health care.

These broad beliefs are reflected in attitudes toward the specific health care reform package now before Congress. The July Washington Post and ABC News survey indicates that a majority of all Americans (54%) favor the legislation. This includes three-quarters of Democrats and six in 10 independents, but fewer than a quarter of Republicans.

In the end, however, in spite of claims by Republicans such as South Carolina's Senator Jim DeMint that congressional failure to pass health care legislation could prove to be Obama's "Waterloo," the matter is really an almost entirely Democratic concern. Throughout the current health care debate commentators have drawn a parallel with the situation that existed in 1993, when a newly elected, personally appealing, young Democratic president--Bill Clinton--last pushed for comprehensive health care reform. From the Democratic perspective, the outcome nearly two decades ago was disastrous. In spite of having majorities in Congress similar to the current Democratic majorities, the effort to remake America's health care system foundered and died. A year later, the Republican Party, led by Newt Gingrich, took control of the both the Senate and House, a majority status it did not relinquish until 2006. Many of the Democratic Senators and Representatives who resisted health care reform in 1993 were defeated in 1994 and, as Nate Silver points out, only a handful ever returned to Congress. But, E.J. Dionne reminds today's congressional Democrats that they "are not living in the Republican congressional eras of 1995 or 2003...they have the strength on their own to win."

 Democrats have that congressional strength because the country has entered a new political era, driven by the emerging civic Millennial Generation, in which the Democratic Party is now clearly the majority party within the American electorate and is in position to retain that majority status for decades to come. Most in that Democratic electoral majority personally need meaningful health care reform and expect Congress to enact it. This is today's new political reality. The next several weeks will tell us whether congressional Democrats will perceive and take advantage of that new reality or look backward to the old realities of the past. The stakes in that decision for the Obama presidency, the Democratic Party, and the nation will be crucial for years to come. We will soon see if congressional Democrats have the ability and courage to choose wisely and perceptively.

Sustaining the Honeymoon

A July 3 Gallup poll release was headlined the "Obama honeymoon continues." A few days later two Quinnipiac surveys showed the president's approval rating in Ohio and Virginia, two former red states that Obama carried in 2008, had fallen below 50% for the first time. That same week, Senate Democratic majority Leader, Harry Reid, reportedly asked Montana Senator, Max Baucus to break off efforts to engage his Republican counterpart, Iowa's Chuck Grassley, in a bipartisan healthcare reform bill and instead to work on maintaining sufficient Democratic unity to put a bill on the president's desk during the current congressional session. This move toward a more clearly partisan approach on healthcare and other crucial legislation may be the key to sustaining the Obama honeymoon and Democratic congressional strength, both of which are closely linked and ultimately inseparable.

 Gallup defines a presidential honeymoon as the number of consecutive months at the start of a new administration during which the president's job approval score remains above 55% (the average approval score for all presidents in Gallup's polling since the Truman administration). Since his inauguration, President Obama's approval score has never fallen below 55% and, with a few scattered and brief exceptions, remained above 60%. During the first six months of this year his approval score averaged 63%. As a result, the Obama honeymoon has already exceeded those of Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. As Gallup points out, "if [Obama] can maintain ratings above 55% through the summer, his honeymoon will match the length of those for Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan" and, as a result, will equal or be longer than those of most presidents since Richard Nixon.

Fundamental changes in America's attitudes toward government as well as the arrival of a new civic generation in the American electorate help explain much of the durability of President Obama's positive job performance ratings. As Morley Winograd and I pointed out in our book, Millennial Makeover, the 2008 election marked the passage of the United States from an "idealist" to a "civic" political era. Driven by the emergence of a large new civic generation, Millennials, born 1982-2003, much about American politics changed. As indicated in the following table, during civic eras Americans have more positive attitudes toward political institutions and personalities.  The data depicted below was drawn from surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center in 1994, the year in which Newt Gingrich led the Republican Party to control of both houses of Congress at the height of the last idealist era, and in 2009.

 

% Agreeing that:

U.S. Public 1994

U.S. Public 2009

Millennials 2009

"people like me don't have a say in what government does"

54%

51%

46%

"elected officials lose touch with people quickly"

83%

76%

67%

 "elected officials care what people like me think"

33%

38%

46%

"government regulation of business usually does more harm than good"

63%

54%

51%

"when something is run by the government it's usually inefficient and wasteful"

69%

57%

42%

 "government is really run for the benefit of all people"

42%

49%

60%

 "federal government controls too much of our daily lives"

69%

55%

48%

Across all of these questions, the American public is now more positive, or at least less negative, about government and how it operates than in 1994. America's newest civic generation, the Millennials, is driving these improvements in perceptions of government. The last time a civic generation, the GI Generation (born 1901-1924) dominated American life, in the 1940s and 1950s, sizable majorities held favorable attitudes toward government and other political institutions. This is likely to happen again as the entire Millennial Generation (only about 40% of whom were eligible to vote in 2008) comes of age politically.

These positive civic era attitudes toward government and politics are reflected in presidential approval scores over the decades. The four presidents who served during the previous GI Generation-dominated civic era (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson) had honeymoons that averaged 29 months, a number that was reduced significantly by Truman's abbreviated post-war 11 month-long honeymoon. In the idealist era that began in 1968 with the emergence of the sharply divided Baby Boom Generation and the election of Richard Nixon, presidential honeymoons averaged only 8 months. George H.W. Bush's was the  longest  (21 months) and the shortest were those of Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton (one month each). Even Ronald Reagan, an ultimately popular and successful president, had only an 8-month long honeymoon, the average for the era.

The electorate  also looks far different now than it did during  much of the idealist era that is receding into history. From 1990 through 2004 the national party identification balance between Republicans and Democrats was fairly even. According to Pew, the largest Democratic advantage (9 percentage points) occurred in 1992 when Bill Clinton won the presidency; twice (1994 and 2002) the two parties were dead even. By contrast, since 2006 the Democratic advantage has steadily grown. It is now about 16 percentage points. Overall, a bit more than half of the electorate identifies with or leans to the Democrats while around a third say they are Republicans or lean to the GOP.

At the end of June, Gallup data indicates that 90% of all Democratic identifiers, 92% of liberal Democrats, 88% of moderate Democrats and 84% of conservative Democrats approved of the president's performance. Obama's marks remained very high, and if anything, increased in June among such key groups such as Millennials (73%), African-Americans (96%), and Hispanics (81%). Obama's support among the increased number of Democrats and Democratically oriented demographic groups provides a buffer for his approval scores that presidents in the recent idealist era did not have.

But, in politics, as in physics, what goes up seems eventually to come down. Even in civic eras, presidential honeymoons end. Dwight Eisenhower's lasted 41 months, about three-quarters of the way through his first term. John F. Kennedy's continued for 32 months, almost to the end of his tragically truncated presidency. Lyndon Johnson's continued for 30 months, through his landslide reelection, until controversy over the Vietnam war and societal unrest ended it, ultimately setting the stage for the election of Richard Nixon and the end of the New Deal civic era.

And, so, Democrats and progressives must at least notice and pay heed to poll results that suggest the diminishing of the Obama honeymoon. The two Quinnipiac polls indicating the president's approval level had fallen to 45% in Ohio and 48% in Virginia could be canaries in the coalmine warning of future disasters.  While the president's marks have held together better in consistently blue states like Michigan and Pennsylvania than in these more purple states, the most recent Gallup tracking surveys also indicate that President Obama's national approval evaluation has fallen to 57%,  perilously close to falling below the "honeymoon level." .

That is why Senator Reid's dictum to Senator Baucus to cease efforts to find a bipartisan approach to healthcare reform is important and encouraging. Another characteristic of civic eras is that most voters prefer unified rather than divided government. A CNN survey taken about a week before the 2008 election indicated that a solid majority of voters (59%) wanted the Democrats to control both Congress and the Presidency while only 38% preferred divided government. When questioned about this preference, voters told pollsters that they wanted unified government to "get things done." They want one of the parties to control both the presidency and congress so that institutional barriers will be overcome and the major problems facing the country will be confronted and resolved.

A continuation of the Obama honeymoon provides the president and congressional Democrats (whose political fates are inextricably linked) an opportunity and the political capital to heed the wishes and votes of the electorate and "get things done." If they succeed, they will prosper together. If they fail, they will go down together.

Independent Means Nonpartisan: Just Another Washington Myth, Part 2

For Washington pundits not otherwise engaged in dissecting the strength and effectiveness of Barack Obama's reaction to events in Iran or the extent to which he still might use tobacco, the chief topic of conversation during the past week has been about how political independents may be deserting the president, thereby accounting for a modest dip (a fair amount of which already seems to have been restored) in his job approval marks.

One of those writing about the presumably crucial role of independents is the normally highly astute Wall Street Journal columnist, Gerald Seib. According to Seib "independent voters are the canaries in the coal mine of American politics, telling a leader whether the air is safe or starting to fill up with some toxic gases. Bearing that in mind, President Obama and his team ought to start worrying about the health of those canaries."

Citing Wall Street Journal/NBC surveys, Seib indicates that the president's job approval rates among independents fell from 60% in April to 45% in June. What makes this particularly important, according to Seib, is that independents "tend to decide most elections, and they went for Mr. Obama by a 52% to 44% margin" last November.

Independents, in fact, may have been less decisive in the president's victory than, for example, members of the Millennial Generation (voters 18-27) who in 2008 comprised slightly less than one-fifth of the electorate, voted for Obama by a 66% to 32% margin, and accounted for 80% of his popular vote margin over John McCain.

But, the biggest flaw in Seib's commentary is that his portrayal of independents is narrowly focused and shallow. It does not fully account for the demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal diversity of those who tell pollsters that they are "independents" rather than Republicans or Democrats.

As indicated in last week's posting on this site, the large majority (about 80%) of self-identified independents actually "lean" to one or the other of the two parties. Consequently, most independents (and by extension, the electorate) are far more partisan than a cursory overview of poll findings might suggest. Currently, the Democrats hold a solid and increasing lead over the Republicans among the majority of independents who lean toward a party. About six in 10 "leaners" now tilt to the Democrats. Pew Research Center data for the past three months indicates that a majority of the electorate (51%) identifies with or leans to the Democratic Party. A third (34%) is Republican identifiers and leaners. Only 14% (not quite the 20% cited by Seib) is completely unaffiliated or "pure independents." Rather than being the decisive center as Seib and others suggest, non-committed voters actually comprise a small minority of the electorate.

Of course, all of this would simply be interesting trivia if those who lean to one of the parties were not different in important ways from those who lean to the other party and from "pure independents." In fact, the differences among these groups are profound.

Demographic Differences

The following table, based on data drawn from Pew's Political Values and Core Attitudes survey, conducted every two years with a large than normal sample, compares those who identify with, lean to, or are completely unaffiliated with one of the two parties on key demographic attributes.

 

Strong Democrat

Not Strong Democrat

Independent

Democrat

Unaffiliated Independent

Independent Republican

Not Strong Republican

Strong Republican

Gender

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Male

37%

44%

51%

60%

59%

56%

45%

Female

63%

56%

49%

40%

41%

44%

55%

Ethnicity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White

55%

67%

70%

75%

87%

92%

93%

African-American

30%

17%

12%

10%

7%

1%

2%

Hispanic

15%

16%

18%

15%

6%

7%

5%

Age

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18-29

18%

28%

28%

25%

20%

16%

21%

30-49

31%

38%

37%

34%

34%

36%

34%

50-64

32%

22%

22%

24%

28%

27%

25%

65+

18%

12%

12%

14%

16%

20%

18%

Region

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northeast

21%

22%

21%

15%

15%

18%

18%

Midwest

23%

19%

27%

26%

24%

22%

21%

South

36%

36%

33%

36%

40%

38%

38%

West

20%

22%

19%

23%

21%

22%

23%

Much about this data will not surprise anyone who has followed American politics during the past half-century. Democratic identifiers, particularly Strong Democrats, are disproportionately female, ethnic, and reside in the Northeast. In addition, over the past several election cycles younger voters have increasingly affiliated with the Democrats. Republican identifiers are more likely than average to be male and white, especially from the South. Republican identifiers are now also a bit older than their Democratic counterparts, a gap that is likely to grow as greater numbers of solidly Democratic Millennials come of age during the next decade.

But what is most important, and perhaps may be most surprising to DC observers, about these survey results are the differences between independents who lean to the Democrats and those who say they are closer to the GOP. While a majority of both groups are male, the Independent Republicans contain a greater number of men than any of the party identification subgroups (59%). In addition, the Independent Democrats contain nearly two and a half times as many African-Americans and Hispanics than do the Independent Republicans (30% vs. 13%). The Independent Republicans also contain the largest percentage of Southerners and the Independent Democrats the smallest. On the other hand, voters from the Northeast contribute disproportionately to the Independent Democrats. Finally, nearly two-thirds of the Democratic leaners (65%) are under 50 while, by contrast, nearly half (44%) of those who lean to the GOP are 50+. In other words, demographically those who lean to a party look a lot like those who identify with that party.

Voting Behavior Differences

They also vote very much like them. The following table, using data collected by the Millennial Strategy Program of Frank N. Magid Associates about a week before Election Day 2008, displays the presidential and congressional vote intentions of party identifiers, independents who lean to a party, and unaffiliated independents.

 

Strong Democrat

Not Strong Democrat

Independent Democrat

Unaffiliated Independent

Independent Republican

Not Strong Republican

Strong Republican

 2008 Presidential Vote Intention

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obama

93%

56%

78%

37%

2%

19%

4%

McCain

3%

15%

8%

24%

84%

73%

93%

Other candidate

1%

1%

1%

11%

1%

1%

1%

Undecided

3%

27%

13%

29%

12%

7%

2%

Congressional Vote Intention

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democratic Candidate

94%

63%

64%

19%

1%

5%

3%

Republican Candidate

1%

8%

3%

19%

62%

70%

85%

Other Candidate

*

1%

1%

6%

*

1%

--

Undecided

7%

28%

33%

56%

37%

25%

12%

* Less than .5%

These results lead to a number of clear and important conclusions about the voting behavior of independents, both those who lean to a party and those who don't.

  • The independent leaners are decisively partisan. Upwards of eight in 10 of them indicated the intent to vote for the presidential candidate of the party to which they lean. In fact, they were more likely to do so than those who identify weakly with a party. About two-thirds of independent leaners said they would vote for the congressional candidate of the party to which they lean. Almost none expressed any willingness to cross party lines and vote for opposition candidates.
  • On one level the uncommitted independents are indeed nonpartisan. The choices of those "pure independents" that had made one at the time of the survey were divided fairly evenly. A significant number of them had not yet determined for whom they would vote. However, it is a clear misperception to portray the "pure independents" as voters who were closely observing the political process and carefully weighing their choices. In the face of the social desirability of wanting to appear concerned about a crucial election at a time of major national stress, only about 60% of the uncommitted independents (in contrast to nearly 90% of the other groups) said they were very interested in or that it was very important to them who was elected president. Many, if not most, of the uncommitted independents were nonpartisan simply because they had too little interest in and knowledge of politics to make a choice.

Attitudinal Differences

The clear and persistent partisanship of Independent Republicans and Independent Democrats is also strikingly evident in their political opinions. The table below, containing data collected by Pew in May 2009, portrays favorable attitudes toward a number of political figures and the two parties. 

 

Strong Democrats

Not Strong Democrats

Independent Democrats

Unaffiliated Independents

Independent Republicans

Not Strong Republicans

Strong Republicans

Barack Obama

97%

94%

94%

78%

37%

58%

37%

Michelle Obama

95%

90%

87%

70%

61%

65%

59%

Joe Biden

80%

70%

65%

44%

22%

33%

30%

George W. Bush

7%

15%

15%

38%

56%

65%

83%

Democratic Party

94%

87%

79%

35%

27%

35%

13%

Republican Party

11%

26%

34%

28%

62%

71%

88%

 Again the implications are clear.

  • Independent leaners hold strikingly partisan attitudes. Solid majorities of them have positive impressions of politicians from the party to which they lean and of that party itself. Only a minority of them express favorable opinions about the opposing party and its politicians. While the independent leaners may not be as firmly positive about "their" party as are strong identifiers, they do have a solid sense of partisan connection. They are clearly not uncommitted and easily malleable centrists.
  • The non-leaning independents are indeed broadly nonpartisan in their attitudes. Fewer than half express positive opinions about any political figure other than the president and first lady or toward either party. But this is as much a matter of limited political knowledge and involvement as it is of conscious weighing of options or firmly divided opinion. This is evidenced by the fact that while almost all of the uncommitted independents were able to say whether or not they like Barack and Michelle Obama as people (or celebrities), a third were unable to rate the president's job performance in the same survey.

In sum, almost nine in 10 American voters are currently attached, in varying degrees, to one or the other of the two political parties. Some of those are indeed independents that lean toward a party rather than identifying with that party outright. But in their demographics and, importantly, their voting behavior and political attitudes, these independent leaners more closely resemble committed partisans than they do the small minority of "pure independents."

Together those who identify and lean to the Democratic Party now comprise a majority of voters. This is the first time since the mid-1960s that either party can make that claim. This puts President Obama and his Democratic congressional colleagues in position to break the gridlock that has dominated Washington for the past four decades. To do that, however, they will have to take a new, outside the Beltway, look at the electorate and all of its component parts. They will have to recognize that voters have moved America into a new era and have the fortitude to follow.

Independent Means Nonpartisan: Just Another Washington Myth

In Washington perception is often reality and, based on the reported results of two new surveys, one by the New York Times and CBS and the other by the Wall Street Journal and NBC, the perception du jour in DC is that President Barack Obama has lost ground because of public concern with government spending, the deficit, and, perhaps most of all, the General Motors "bailout." The New York Times story on its survey is even headlined, "In poll, Obama is seen as ineffective on the economy.

But a look beneath the headlines to the survey data itself indicates that New York Times writers, or at least their headline writer, may have misread their own poll results. Instead of condemning of the president's handling of the economy, in the New York Times/CBS survey, the public actually approves of it by a greater than twenty-percentage point margin (57% vs. 35%), statistically unchanged since the first weeks of the administration. In the aftermath of the president's recent trip to the Middle East and Europe, his marks in foreign policy have actually risen since May.  And, even in health care reform, a work in progress and a relative soft spot for Obama, voters approve of his performance by 44-percent to 34-percent.

As a result, Obama's overall job approval rating is unchanged over the past month, down slightly since April, and even up marginally since February and March. To the extent that the president's performance rating has fallen, the drop has been almost totally concentrated among Republicans.

What may contribute to the expectation that Obama is standing on shaky ground, or soon will be, is another incorrect inside-the-beltway perception, this one primarily advanced by Republican commentators since the president's election, that America is "conservative," "center right" or at least "centrist." More often than not these pronouncements stem from narrowly focused interpretations of surveys suggesting that the number of "independents" in the electorate is growing and that self-perceived independents represent some amorphous, undifferentiated group of "centrists" who are decisive in U.S. politics.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The large majority (about 80%) of those who tell pollsters they are independents actually "lean" to one or the other of the two parties. Those who lean to the Democrats differ demographically and, even more importantly, behaviorally and attitudinally from those who lean to the GOP. As a result, the electorate is far more partisan than superficial analyses of survey results might suggest. Currently, the Democrats hold a substantial and growing edge over the Republicans among independents who lean toward a party. About six in ten "leaners" now tilt to the Democrats. Coupled with their large lead among those who do identify with a party, the Democrats are clearly operating as the country's decisive majority party.

John P. Avlon, who served on the policy and speech writing teams of Rudy Giuliani's abbreviated 2008 presidential campaign, is only the most recent of those professing the importance of centrist independents. Citing Pew Research Center data, Avlon claimed in an early June Wall Street Journal article that the number of self-identified independents in the electorate has risen sharply since Obama's win last November while the percentage of both Democrats and Republicans has fallen. Because of these post-election shifts, according to Avlon, "independents hold the balance of power in the Obama era."

On the surface, Avlon's description of the Pew data may be accurate. But his characterization of party identification data is shallow and incomplete. Avlon, like most of those who write about the distribution of party identifiers within the US electorate, refers to only three discrete and presumably undifferentiated categories of voters--Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

However, voting behavior analysts affiliated with the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, who first formulated the concept of party identification in the 1950s, recognized early on that those who identify with a particular political party do so with varying degrees of strength, while those who say they are independents may lean toward one or the other of the parties. As a result, the Michigan researchers developed a seven-point scale to more fully capture the actual complexity of party identification. This scale consists of Strong Democrats on one extreme and Strong Republicans on the other. In between the two extremes are Weak Democrats, Independents who lean to the Democrats, Independents who lean to the Republicans and Weak Republicans. In the very center of the scale are Independents who do not lean to either party.

All of this might only be of academic interest were it not for the crucial importance of party identification. Party identification represents a psychological attachment of voters to a political party. While it certainly is not a contractual obligation to support a party, the large majority of Americans vote for the party with which they identify or to which they lean--and they almost always adhere to its positions on issues as well . Political scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that party identification is the single most important factor shaping the choices of individual voters. In the aggregate, these numbers really do matter.  The distribution of party identifiers and leaners is the clearest indicator of the relative strength of the two parties within the U.S. electorate and has now tilted heavily toward the Democrats.

Utilizing the more complete and useful seven-point scale rather than a three-point division paints a far different picture of American voters than the one that Avlon and most of those who report on trends in party identification paint. Based on April 2009 data that is the most recent cited by Pew, here is the overall distribution of party identifiers in the U.S.:

Strong Democrats

23%

Weak Democrats

13%

Democratic Leaning Independents

18%

Non-Leaning Independents

13%

Republican Leaning Independents

12%

Weak Republicans

10%

Strong Republicans

12%

* Table does not total 100% due to rounding

This table makes several points very clear. First, the Democrats are clearly the majority party holding a decisive twenty-percentage point party ID lead over the Republicans (54% to 34%). Second, barely one in ten voters is a non-leaning independent; rather than being the decisive center, non-committed voters actually comprise a small minority of the electorate.

The following table, also using Pew tracking data, displays the distribution of party identification for all election years from 1990 through 2006 and for every year since then. 

Year

Republican/Lean Republican

Independents

Democrat/Lean Democrat

Overall Democratic Advantage

1990

43%

13%

44%

+1%

1992

40%

11%

49%

+9%

1994

44%

12%

44%

0

1996

42%

10%

48%

+6%

1998

39%

14%

47%

+8%

2000

39%

14%

44%

+5%

2002

43%

14%

43%

0

2004

41%

12%

47%

+6%

2006

38%

15%

47%

+9%

2007

36%

14%

50%

+14%

2008

36%

13%

51%

+15%

2009

36%

12%

52%

+16%

These results lead to a number of clear and important conclusions about the distribution of party identification across the American electorate during the past two decades.

  • The Democrats have generally held the edge throughout the entire period. But, that advantage was relatively small during the 1990s and the first three election years of this century. The Democratic margin widened a bit in the two years when Bill Clinton won the presidency (1992 and 1996) and 1998, when some voters may have turned against the GOP in reaction to a politically motivated impeachment effort. By contrast, the Republicans reached parity with the Democrats in 1994, the year of the Gingrich revolution that saw the GOP gain control of Congress, and 2002, when the nation rallied to a Republican president in the aftermath of 9/11.
  • The Democratic advantage has sharply and consistently widened since the 2006 midterm elections when that party regained control of Congress. A number of factors--the disastrous George W. Bush presidency, an increasingly diverse electorate, the emergence of the Millennial Generation (young Americans born 1982-2003), the election and continued appeal of Barack Obama--have all undoubtedly contributed to the Democrats' increased party identification lead. Regardless of the relative importance of these and other factors, a greater percentage of American voters now identifies as Democrats or leans Democratic than at any time since Lyndon Johnson's landslide 1964 victory over Barry Goldwater. The Democratic margin over the GOP is larger than at any time since the post-Watergate period of the mid-1970s.
  • The number of completely non-affiliated voters has slightly, but consistently, declined each year since 2006. Rather than becoming more crucial, as writers such as Avlon suggest, unattached independents have actually become less important during past several years.

All of this leaves President Obama and congressional Democrats in strong position as they prepare for the major battles ahead on health care reform and energy--if they have the courage to avoid giving in to incorrect Washington perceptions and, instead, take advantage of the rare opportunity that the American electorate has given them.

The GOP's Impossible Dream: Republicans Can't Win Without Latino Support in Millennial Era

Note: This essay is the first in a new series that I will be contrubuting to NDN. The essays will examine important and interesting data from available public surveys and surveys commissioned by NDN and its affiliates. Themes and analysis will include attitudes toward race and ethnicity, the economy, foreign affairs and the Millennial Generation, but will not be limited to those topics. 

In a recent posting on his fivethirtyeight.com Web site, Nate Silver raised the possibility that the Republican Party could more effectively compete in the 2012 and 2016 elections by turning its back on Hispanics and attempting to maximize the support of white voters in enough 2008 Midwestern and Southern blue states to flip them red. This would involve positioning the GOP as the non-Latino party by "pursuing an anti-immigrant, anti-NAFTA, 'American First' sort of platform.'" The Republican Party rode similar exclusionary strategies to dominance of U.S. politics during most of the past four decades.

But America has entered a new era. Propelled by the election of its first African-American president, an increasingly non-white and more heavily Latino population, and the emergence of a new, significantly more tolerant generation, the Millennials, America is not the same country, demographically and attitudinally, that it was in the 1960s or even the 1990s. These changes have altered the electoral environment and lessened the usefulness of divisive strategies that were once effective, but may no longer be so.

Superficially, a non-Latino strategy might seem more plausible than anything else the GOP has attempted since the election of Barack Obama. After offering significant support to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, Hispanics have recently become a solidly Democratic group. Republicans may have little to lose in not courting them in the next election or two. Nationally, Hispanics voted for Barack Obama over John McCain by more than 2:1 (67% vs. 31%). They supported Democratic House candidates last year by an even greater margin (68% vs. 29%). Pew surveys indicate that four times as many Hispanics identify as Democrats than Republicans (62% vs. 15%).

Adopting a non-Hispanic strategy would certainly be compatible with strategies the GOP has been utilizing for decades. From the "Southern strategy" of Richard Nixon and Kevin Phillips in the late 1960s, through the "wedge issues" used by Lee Atwater in the 1980s, to Karl Rove's "base politics" in this decade, the Republicans effectively took advantage of white middle and working class fears of the "other" -- African-Americans, gays, feminists -- who could be positioned as being outside the American mainstream. Applying this approach to Latinos would only be doing what came naturally for the GOP during the past 40 years.

But, while ethnically exclusionary strategies may offer the possibility of short-term relief, they do little to resolve the deep difficulties now facing the Republican Party. The ethnic composition of the United States is far different now than it was in the 1960s when the GOP began to separate white southerners (and like-minded white working class voters in other regions) from their long attachment to the Democratic Party. Four decades ago, 90 percent of Americans were white, and virtually all of the remainder were African-American. Hispanics were a negligible factor within the population and the electorate. Since then, the percentage of non-Hispanic whites in America has fallen to two-thirds. Hispanics now comprise about 15 percent of the population and just under 10 percent of the electorate. Moreover, Hispanics are a relatively young demographic. Even if no additional Latinos migrate to the United States, their importance will continue to increase as older whites pass from the scene.

It is this rise in the Hispanic population that prompted Silver to offer his suggested non-Latino strategy to the Republicans in the first place. But Silver's plan, which he facetiously calls "Operation Gringo," would require the GOP to pull off a rare political balancing act or "thread the needle" to use his term. In order to compensate for expected losses in the increasingly Latino Southwestern states of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and, without John McCain on their ticket, Arizona, Republicans would have to win states like Pennsylvania and Michigan that they have not carried in decades. They would have to do this while not, at the same time, losing Florida and possibly Texas with their own large Hispanic electorates.

Moreover, while it is true that Hispanics are not distributed evenly across the country, Silver concedes "there are Hispanics everywhere now." Latinos were decisive in Obama's wins in closely divided "gringo territories" such as Indiana, North Carolina, and Nebraska's second congressional district and the growth rate of Hispanics is greatest in "nontraditional" areas like the South and Prairie states. This means that "America first" campaigning may ultimately have the effect of hurting Republicans even in some of the "white" states where it was intended to help.

However, the biggest barrier in running against Hispanics is that American attitudes on ethnicity have changed significantly over the past four decades. A new Pew survey indicates that Americans have become less hostile toward immigrants and more positive about policies designed to incorporate immigrants, even undocumented immigrants, into American society.

The number favoring a policy that would allow illegal immigrants (Pew's term) currently in the country to gain citizenship if they pass background checks, pay fines and have jobs has increased from 58 percent to 63 percent since 2007. While 73 percent do agree that America should restrict and control people coming to live in here more than we do now, that number is down from 80 percent in 2002 and 82 percent in 1994. Finally, support for free trade agreements like NAFTA has risen from 34 percent in 2003 and 40 percent in 2007 to 44 percent now.

The Pew findings are confirmed by the findings of a survey recently released by Pete Brodnitz of the Benenson Strategy Group. That study indicated that, across party lines, virtually all Americans (86%) favor the passage by Congress of comprehensive immigration reform when they are given full details of that plan.

Leading the way in these increasingly tolerant attitudes is the Millennial Generation (Americans born 1982-2003). Only a third of Millennials (35% vs. 55% for older generations) believe that the growing number of immigrants threatens traditional American values. Just 58 percent of Millennials (compared with 77% of older generations) agrees that the United States should increase restrictions on those coming to live in America. A large majority of Millennials (71% in contrast to 62% of older Americans) favors a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. And, 61-percent of Millennials favor free trade agreements such as NAFTA in contrast to just 40 percent of older generations.

To date America has only seen the tip of the Millennial iceberg. In 2008, just 41 percent of them were eligible to vote and they comprised only 17 percent of the electorate. By 2012, more than 60 percent of Millennials will be of voting age and they will be a quarter of the electorate. In 2020, when the youngest Millennials will be able to vote, they will make up more than a third of the electorate. Over the next decade, this will make the ethnically tolerant attitudes of the Millennial Generation the rule rather than the exception in American politics.

At this early point in the Millennial era, Republicans remain most open to the intolerance and immigrant bashing of ethnically exclusionary strategies. Pew indicates the number of Democrats and independents who favor a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is up 11 points and 3 points respectively since 2007. By contrast, the number of Republicans who favor that policy is down by six points. In the end, a non-Hispanic approach by Republicans would amount to a continuation of Karl Rove's base strategy. As the Republican base continues to diminish in the Millennial Era, that strategy will be a recipe for disaster for the GOP, certainly in the long term, and very likely in the short run as well.

It's a Brand New Era. Deal With It (Round II).

This week's NBC-Wall Street Journal poll demonstrating both the personal appeal to the American people of President Barack Obama and of his policy approach also has very good news for the Democratic Party. That survey and others suggest that the Democratic Party has strength that is deeper, antedates, and will likely extend beyond the Obama presidency. The NBC survey indicates that about half of the public (49%) has a favorable opinion of the Democrats, while only about half that number is positive about the Republicans (26%). The most recent Daily Kos tracking survey paints an even rosier picture for the Democrats. In that poll, while 58 percent are positive about the Democratic Party, only 32 percent feel that way about the Republicans, numbers that have improved for the Democrats and declined for the Republicans since the first of the year.

Positive feelings toward the Democratic Party and negative impressions of the GOP are deeper than these overall attitudes suggest. For example, the Republicans are given the primary blame for the partisan rancor that has characterized Washington politics in recent years. A majority (56%) attribute "all" or a "major part" of the blame for that to the Bush Administration and 41 percent blame congressional Republicans. By contrast, only a quarter (24%) say partisanship is the fault of congressional Democrats and a scant 11 percent attributes it to President Obama. As a result, a clear majority (56%) believes that GOP opposition to Obama Administration policies comes from an effort to gain political advantage rather than principle (30%). All of this goes a long way toward explaining why, by a greater than 2:1 margin on the biggest issue of the day, Americans believe that the Democrats rather than the Republicans will do a better job of ending the recession (48% vs. 20%).

To an extent, attitudes like these may change with the emergence and departure of specific issues and politicians. But, surveys indicate that the American public has formed what is likely to be a long-term attachment to the Democratic Party. The Pew Research Center's tracking of party identification gave the GOP a narrow national lead over the Democrats in party ID in 1995, the year after the Republicans captured control of both houses of Congress for the first time in about four decades (46% vs. 43%). The Democratic Party's comeback began in earnest in 2006 as it recaptured Congress and moved to a nine-percentage point party identification advantage over the Republicans (47% vs. 38%). Currently, the Democrats have a 53% to 37% edge.

What is behind the clear emergence of the Democratic Party as America's majority political party is the coming-of-age of a new generation of young Americans, the Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003). Like their GI Generation ("Greatest Generation") great grandparents before them, the Millennials are a "civic" generation, committed to liberal interventionism in the economy, activist multilateralism in foreign affairs, tolerant non-meddling on social issues, and to the Democratic Party.

Millennials identify as Democrats by a greater than 2:1 margin and are the first American generation in at least four to contain a greater number of self-perceived liberals rather than conservatives. Survey data collected by both Pew and media research and consultation firm, Frank N. Magid Associates, indicates that these identifications predated the 2008 presidential campaign or even the emergence of Barack Obama as a well-known national political figure. But Millennials did flex their political muscles in a big way in 2008, voting overwhelmingly for both Barack Obama over John McCain (68% vs. 32%) and Democratic over GOP congressional candidates (63% vs. 34%). Millennials accounted for 80 percent of Obama's national popular vote lead, turning a narrow victory into a mandate.

There is nothing to suggest that the firm attachment of the Millennial Generation to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party is in any way diminishing. The Kos survey indicates that an astounding and virtually unanimous 86 percent of Millennials now hold favorable opinions of President Obama. While Obama may personalize the political beliefs and Democratic identifications of the Millennial Generation, he is also likely to help extend them as surely as FDR aided in extending those of the GI Generation in the 1930s and 1940s. More than two-thirds of Millennials (68%) have favorable impressions of the Democratic Party and a majority is positive about congressional Democrats (53%). Meanwhile, Millennials have almost nothing good to say about the GOP: just 19 percent like the Republican Party and virtually none (9%) are positive about congressional Republicans. Voting behavior research since the 1950s indicates that once attitudes and identifications like these are formed, they tend to be set for life and rarely change. Clearly the road ahead for the Republican Party is hard and rocky.

But, as the GOP brand continues to erode, the Republicans are treating the country to a spat between its titular head, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, and the man some consider the party's de facto leader, radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh. After Steele criticized him for being an "entertainer" with an "incendiary" and "ugly" show, Limbaugh distanced himself from the Republican National Committee, if not from the Republican Party, saying to Steele that, "You are not the head of the Republican Party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the Republican National Committee."

On the day after the 1994 GOP midterm election sweep, this writer could not resist the masochistic urge of turning his car radio dial to Limbaugh's show and hearing Limbaugh's audience of "dittoheads" extol him for his leadership of the Republican victory. On that day, Limbaugh was more than happy to accept the plaudits of his listeners and proud to wear the mantle of Republican leadership. He did not separate himself from any part of the GOP. The fact that he has done so now provides clear evidence that American politics has, indeed, entered a new era.

It's a Brand New Era. Deal With It.

The NBC-Wall Street Journal survey released yesterday is chock-full of numbers indicating that the public overwhelmingly likes President Barack Obama and approves of his efforts to once again set America on the right track. More than two-thirds (68%) have a favorable opinion of the President; nearly half (47%) are "very positive." Two-thirds (67%) also "feel hopeful" about his leadership and nearly as many (60%) approve of his job performance. But, perhaps to appear "unbiased" and find something negative to say, NBC's Chuck Todd says that Obama is more popular personally than are his policies.

Technically that's true: "only" 54-percent say that the President has the "right goals and policies for the country." But in minimizing public support for the administration's policy goals, NBC and Todd are misinterpreting their own data and missing the movement of the United States to a new political and economic era that occurred with the election and inauguration of Barack Obama. That makeover or realignment substantially changed the way in which the American people perceive the role of government and the outcomes they want and expect from federal economic policy. A clear majority of Americans (58%) now favors a government that actively tries to resolve the problems facing society and the economy and almost as many (53%) want government to ensure that everyone has a basic standard of living and level of income, even if that increases government spending. Clearly, the era announced by Ronald Reagan nearly three decades ago, in which government is the problem and not the solution, has ended.

This shift in underlying political attitudes is reflected in the approval given the recently enacted Economic Recovery Act in the NBC-WSJ survey. Nearly a six-in-ten majority supports the "stimulus" package (57%) while barely a third (34%) oppose it. NBC says this reflects soft attitudes toward a key administration policy. However, support at that level for an act that is so big, substantially different from any economic policy since the 1930s, and almost completely opposed by the opposition party is actually quite remarkable. No president since Lyndon Johnson, or perhaps even Franklin D. Roosevelt, has been able to accomplish something so comprehensive with so little watering down in so little time. The first Obama budget, which even the Republican congressional leadership concedes it will not likely stop or even change significantly, will lead to even greater change in the direction of governmental policy.

But, perhaps the most remarkable finding in the NBC survey is the large increase in the number of Americans believing that the country is now moving in a positive direction. Forty-one percent of the public now says the nation is on the right track. That's up from 26 percent in the last month of the Bush administration. Given that Americans still believe the worst is yet to come on the economy (76% say the economy has not yet bottomed out), the increased optimism of the public can only be a result of its regard for Barack Obama and his approach that clearly reflects the movement of the United States to a new civic era of governmental activism.

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