Grand Young Party? Republicans are more likely to win the youth vote than they have been in decades

When former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, he included a unique appeal to young voters — that the GOP is now the party of free thinkers and counterculture warriors.

“Our message to Gen Z is this: You’re going to be the generation that actually saves this country,” he said on stage at the Fiserv Forum in Wisconsin’s most populous city.

“Do you want to be a rebel? Do you want to be a hippie? Do you want to stick it to the man?” continued Ramaswamy. “Show up on your college campus and try to call yourself a conservative. Say you want to get married, have children, teach them to believe in God, and pledge allegiance to their country.”

Some polls indicate that younger voters may do just that.

While the 18-34 crowd is expected to remain broadly Democratic-leaning, notable shifts have emerged during the 2024 election cycle. A Morning Consult “State of the Parties” poll released during the RNC found a shift notable shift in perceptions, with young voters saying the Republican Party has changed for the better in recent years, while the Democratic Party has changed for the worse.

Specifically, the GOP saw a 14-point gain from 2020 levels when young voters were asked which party would keep the country safe, while Democrats saw a 9-point drop. Republicans saw a 17-point gain among young voters who were asked which party “represents my views,” pulling even Democrats across the board.

The survey was not necessarily an outlier. After Vice President Kamala Harris took over for President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, CNN’s Harry Enten filmed a segment in which he cited data showing that Harris’s youth support had dropped 13 points to Biden’s in 2020, along with a 10-point swing to the GOP among voters under 35.

Is the change because Republicans are now the party of rebels, hippies and free speech types? Anecdotal evidence says it is, or at least that conservative views can get you in trouble on campus.

When a California branch of the Young America’s Foundation placed anti-communist posters at Clovis Community College in 2021, administrators ordered the posters removed and denied permission to post new ones. The students sued the college president and other officials and, after a lengthy battle, won a $330,000 settlement that prevented the school from censoring “offensive” speech.

“Just one student standing up can make all the difference in the fight for our First Amendment rights,” said Alejandro Flores, chapter president, after the victory.

While it has become conventional wisdom that younger voters lean left, the axiom is relatively new. Another truism is that young people tend to reject their parents’ opinions.

Young people have supported Democrats from the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt through Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s. But Richard Nixon won the youth vote by 6 points in 1972, Ronald Reagan won it by nearly 20 points in 1984, and George HW Bush enjoyed a 5-point lead with young voters in 1988.

That 1980s political generation gap found its way into pop culture via the NBC sitcom Family tiesin which young Republican Alex P. Keaton, played by Michael J. Fox, battles his liberal, ex-hippie parents.

Show creator Gary David Goldberg has explicitly said that the show reflects his reality.

“It was really just an observation of what was going on in my own life with my friends,” he said. “We were this old kind of radical people, and all of a sudden you’re in the mainstream.”

Craig Shirley was one of those young conservatives who came of age during the Reagan years. Now a presidential historian and Reagan biographer, he said he sees echoes today.

“Young voters have seen high inflation, crime on the streets, endless wars. They don’t like it any more than their elders,” he said. “I’m not surprised that young people are leaning right and Trump because they’ve seen the failures of liberalism.”

In 2000, George W. Bush nearly tied Al Gore in the youth vote, losing by 2 points in the demographic. But since then, and especially after Barack Obama’s millennial slide in 2008, Democrats have outscored Republicans nearly 2 to 1 in the 18-29 set.

Many politicians are skeptical that the winds are changing, especially with a 78-year-old candidate leading the GOP ticket for a third consecutive term.

“Maybe you’ll see some movement, but not as strong as some polls have suggested,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “And maybe it’s not happening at all because Harris seems better suited to younger voters than Biden.”

Harris has certainly energized the Democratic ticket, erasing former President Donald Trump’s lead and bringing huge crowds to her outdoor rallies. Her campaign is burning up the internet with TikTok dances and coconut tree memes, even if so far there’s little political substance.

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Does this translate into actual votes? A CNBC poll released Aug. 8 indicates she will, finding a 12-point shift to the Harris ticket among young voters after she replaced Biden.

The problem for the Democrats is that voters between the ages of 35 and 49 had a 12-point swing in the poll – to Trump. Maybe it’s not time to start Family ties reboot again.