A new survey from Pew Research Center examining the generation gap in American politics shows that the majority of Millennials are, or lean Democratic; have significant interest in the 2018 midterm elections; and overwhelmingly disapprove of President Donald Trump.
Pew Research Center has labeled Millennials as those born between 1981 and 1996; Gen X as those born between 1965 and 1980; the Baby Boom generation as those born between 1946 and 1965, and the Silent Generation as those born between 1928 and 1945. People born after 1996 are considered "Post-Millennial." Some market research agencies and media outlets have alternately deemed the generation after Millennials "iGeneration" or "Digital Natives," though cultural litigation over their generational designation may take years to definitively settle. Recall that Millennials were, during the 1990s and into the 2000s, often called "Generation Y," as a Newsweek story from 2000 attests.
Nearly half of Millennial registered voters — around 44 percent — describe themselves as independents, Pew Research Center found. "However, a majority of Millennials (59 percent) affiliate with the Democratic Party," the report adds, noting that "just 32 percent identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP." This is a sharp divergence from older generations whose political identification is more equal across partisan lines. Only the Silent Generation lean more Republican than Democrat.
Some hopeful news: "Millennials’ early interest in this year’s midterms is greater than for the past two congressional elections," the survey reports. "This year, 62 percent of Millennial registered voters say they are looking forward to the midterms; at similar points in 2014 and 2010, fewer Millennials said they were looking forward to the elections (46 percent in 2014, 39 percent in 2010)."
Millennials' party identification as discussed above generally reflects who they plan to vote for in the midterm elections later this year, with 62 percent of Millennials saying they'd vote for the Democrat in their district. While Pew Research Center says Millennial voters usually favor Democrats during midterms, they do so by wider margins this time around. For older generations, not much has changed from past midterms in terms of who they'd vote for or the amount of early interest in the elections.
When it comes to Trump, Millennials are disproportionately not happy with the president's performance compared to older generations. Nearly two-thirds of Millennials (65 percent) disapprove and just 27 percent approve of his time in office. For Gen-Xers, Trump's disapproval number drops to 57 percent; 51 percent of Boomers disapprove and 48 percent of the Silent generation disapprove.
Before Trump was elected president, there was a lot of talk about how Millennials were more liberal and progressive than past generations. While Hillary Clinton did win the Millennial vote, Trump still won about one-third of young voters, which was higher than pre-election polls and popular discourse suggested. So while this information from Pew Research Center — that young voters lean Democrat —doesn't come off as particularly novel, with midterm elections on the horizon, it is unclear how the chips will fall.
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