A new Christopher Newport University poll released today shows that Virginia millennials overwhelmingly identify as independents, continuing a trend that has younger voters not identifying with either major political party.
Millennials nationally are less likely to identify with either major political
party and far more likely to identify as independents. However, their
movement away from the two major parties is more pronounced against
Republicans than Democrats. According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials are about twice as likely to identify as independent than as
Democrats, and about three times as likely to identify as independents than
as Republicans.7Virginia Millennials’ attachment to the two major political parties is
similarly tenuous. A greater proportion of Millennials report their political
identification as being other or independent (40% combined) than identify
as Democrats (37%) or Republicans (24%).
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CNU goes on to note that in the most populous metropolitan areas, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, 18 to 36 year old voters identify as Republican just 25% and 20%, respectively.
This poll reveals a few things, both short-term and long-term. Most immediate, somehow, RPV and State Central still haven’t repealed this ridiculous Loyalty Oath. What we’re looking now, however, is more than 40% of young voters, a vital, crucial, cornerstone to the Republican Party’s future (or so they tell us), being excluded and denied the ability to vote in the Republican Primary in March. These voters do not identify with the Republican Party, nor the Democrats. And we’re telling them: sign this, or don’t vote with us; we don’t want you.
According to the latest Census information, millennials are more than 25% of the population. Let’s use those numbers, and do some quick math and how many Virginians RPV is alienating.
In 2015, there’s about 5.2 million registered voters. Millennials traditionally are slow to register to vote, so let’s use 15% of that number to determine how many voters we’re looking at total: 780,000 total Millennial voters.
312,000 potential voters. Gone. Peace. Good riddance.
And how many of these are likely to identify or side with the Republican Party after being turned away and rejected at the polling station?
But this isn’t just about RPV’s boneheadedness, and refusal to use common-sense. There’s far more to it than that.
Look, it’s no secret that the Republican Party has done next to nothing to recruit the next generation of voters. As a Young Republican, I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve sat in meetings dedicating to ‘how do we reach young people?’, with nothing generated, or lame ideas such as ‘rock concert outreach’. But our legislative agenda and priorities continue to confound.
Religious freedom bills, expansion of government, budgetary increases, health care, the list goes on. We’re in the worst economy the nation has seen in nearly a century, and we fiddle with the symptoms but not the root cause. Millennials graduate looking for jobs, and can’t find them. Unemployment continues to hover, as more and more people fall out of the job market. As of May, nearly 14 percent of Millennials were out of work. By 2020, they’ll be nearly 40 percent of the job workforce.
I wrote about this very issue two years ago:
Every year lately it feels like it’s the same situation.
Step 1 – We ignore a demographic or make token overtures.
Step 2 – We get trounced in that demographic in the election.
Step 3 – Postgame analysis begins: “We need to work harder reaching to Latinos/African-Americans/youth/women/etc”
Step 4 – ‘Advisory’ boards/teams are formed at post-election meetings and conferences…AKA Repeat Step 1
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At what point is the Republican Party going to take messaging seriously? It doesn’t take a political scientist to figure out why we lost in November. The party voter bloc exists beyond 40+ white men, but you’d rarely know it by listening to messaging or attending a rally. Tax cuts, government bad, cut spending, strong middle class, private sector creates jobs, etc. How many of the above impacts ME, a 30 year old college student with eight years private sector work under my belt?
Maybe one. Jobs.
What about tuition? Transportation? Entry-level jobs? Housing? These issues don’t need to be in every stump speech, but there needs to be effort. When we interact with elected officials, we don’t want to hear the same empty rhetoric spouted on the stump and on television, you have a captive, engaged audience. Do us the courtesy of engaging us back!
Oh look, now here’s my two years later update…
There’s ways to reach the next and current generation of voters, ways that fall within our wheelhouse. Limited government, empowering the individual, personal rights. But we find ourselves too often in bickering bouts over gay marriage, abortion and social issues that do little for average Americans, but trigger fundraising emails galore from politicians and issue-centric 501(c)4s.
We’re doing it wrong. We’ve been doing it wrong. And it’s not likely to stop. But we can’t keep our heads in the sand as more and more young voters continue to be turned off or alienated by the Republican Party.
Nothing’s changed. And sadly, it’s unlikely to change. But there’s common-sense steps we can take.
A start? Let’s drop this moronic Loyalty Oath, and not turn away 300,000+ voters.
