http://www.nationalreview.com/corner Obama Is Losing the Millennials, But the GOP Isn’t Gaining Them (Yet)
By Veronique de Rugy
November 3, 2014 3:20 PM
On Friday, Dana Milbank pointed to the new Harvard survey about President Obama and the Millennial generation:
The Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School released a survey of millennial voters showing that this 18- to 29-year-old demographic, a rock-solid Democratic constituency a few years ago, is now up for grabs. If this is true, the Republican Party, in the right hands, might be able to defuse the demographic time bomb ticking at party headquarters.
When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, he did it with 66 percent of the votes of those under 30, a modern record. In his reelection, he captured a still-impressive 60 percent of the 18 to 29 crowd. But in the Harvard survey, a majority of those young people likeliest to vote nationwide on Tuesday prefer a Republican Congress to a Democratic one, 51 percent to 47 percent. In 2010, the same survey found a Democratic advantage of 55 to 43 among likely voters. …
More ominous: Only 49 percent of young Hispanics, a crucial demographic for Democrats, say they approve of Obama — a stunning turnaround from 2009, when 81 percent supported Obama.
In the piece, he goes on the say that Obama’s fall from grace will likely benefit Republicans — if Millennials bother going to the polls.
But if Republicans win back control of Congress, they have to make sure not to learn the wrong lessons. In 2013, the share of Americans identifying as Republican fell to 25 percent — its lowest level in decades. In other words, if the Republicans win tomorrow, it won’t be because the independents out there like them, but just because they like Democrats even less. The evidence suggests that Republicans really need to do something different than what they’ve done over the last ten years, if they want people actively joining their side:
In my opinion, even if tomorrow turns out well, the Republican party still needs some serious introspection. A good place to start: getting serious about reducing the size and scope of government. That means getting rid of some of the more ridiculous things the federal government does: the Ex-Im Bank, sugar subsidies, and lots of the other goodies we give corporations.
Attacking business subsidies could particularly help messaging to Millennials, who – not altogether incorrectly — perceive the GOP to be the party of the well-to-do. Dismantling Obamacare (unpopular with Millennials too) with real reforms to our health system rather than cosmetic fixes and refraining from expanding entitlement programs (it was GOP Congresses that gave us Medicare Part D and S-CHIP) should also be no-brainers — many Millennials don’t see themselves ever even benefiting from those programs. Because today’s youngsters will be forced to bear the crushing financial burden of our unsustainable entitlements, the GOP message to Millennials on those programs needs to go well beyond a promise to “make sure Social Security and Medicare are there for future generations.”
Senator Rand Paul, one of the most libertarian members of Congress right now, is fairly popular, including among younger voters. Last week, he made quite an impression when he said that the GOP brand “sucks,” and one has to wonder whether that attitude will help him get the 2016 presidential nomination and hold onto younger voters at the same time. On that point, I agree with Milbank:
The bigger danger to Paul is that, in trying to win the Republican nomination, he’ll lose the qualities that make him appealing to millennials. Unlike his gadfly father, he has positioned himself as a conventional politician, taking have-it-both-ways positions on immigration and same-sex marriage. He has inched away from his isolationist foreign policy (supporting airstrikes against the Islamic State terror group). He has become a party-line Republican on the campaign trail, embracing GOP candidates of all stripes in some 30 states. His RandPac has been pouring in money to help veteran Republican Sen. Pat Roberts fight off an independent challenger in Kansas. On Monday, Paul will campaign for fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, the old-guard Republican in line to become Senate majority leader.
Paul has a chance to save his party — if he doesn’t become part of what makes the Republican brand suck in the first place.
We will see.
