Millennials Are Less Republican Than Ever—And It's Probably Trump's Fault

A new USA Today poll shows millennials are less Republican than ever—and it's probably Donald Trump's fault.

Donald Trump.
WikiCommons

Donald Trump at New Hampshire town hall.

Donald Trump.

A lot of people are referring to today's new USA Today/Rock the Vote poll as some type of "doomsday" poll for the Republican party, and yeah, that's actually pretty accurate.

Various polls have shown that it has all been downhill for Trump after the GOP convention last month, which came right before a historic drop in people saying they'd likely vote for him. Now it appears he's on pace for a historic loss in the November election among the nations largest group of voters, people aged 18 to 35.

According to the new poll, people in that age range are less Republican than they've ever been in the modern era. The survey has Clinton beating Trump 56 percent to 20 percent with people under 35. Meanwhile, 50 percent of the people surveyed under 35 said they identify with the Democratic Party, while only 20 percent said they're Republicans. That's the lowest number in history, at least since we started recording such things. 

If you need some perspective, The Washington Post points out that even John McCain got 32 percent of the voters age 30 and under in 2008, while Mitt Romney got that number up to 36 percent in 2012. Those guys were running against Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton—the kids love that guy. USA Today says that even Richard Nixon, who might be the least cool figure in all of American history, got more of the youth vote than Trump is expected to get.

Analysts are expecting the impact on the Republican party to last for decades to come. 

The findings have implications for politics long past the November election. If the trend continues, the Democratic Party will have scored double-digit victories among younger voters in three consecutive elections, the first time that has happened since such data became readily available in 1952. That could shape the political affiliations of the largest generation in American history for years to follow.

Trump, by the way, is doing historically bad with black voters as wekk. While the black vote traditionally has gone to the Democrats, Trump's reported 2.3 percent share of the black vote is a new low. George W. Bush got 11 percent of the the black vote his last time out, and Mitt Romney got 6 percent, again, against Obama. Even Ronald Reagan got 9 percent in 1984. Even former KKK leader David Duke is polling  better with black voters.

A big part of what's helping Clinton: Bernie Sanders supporters. Despite being all salty about the primaries at the DNC, the poll says that among Berners, 72 percent are now with her, while 11 percent of them are backing Trump.

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