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Why the GOP lost the youth vote
USA TODAY, April, 2008 by David Frum
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A
generation ago, Republicans owned the youth vote.
In 1984 and 1988, first Ronald Reagan and then George H.W. Bush won first-time voters and under-29 voters by big margins: 20 points in 1984. The twentysomethings of the 1980s remain the most Republican cohort in the electorate to this day.
But since 1990, the GOP has lost its connection to the young, and the problem gets worse with every passing election. Today's twentysomethings are the most anti-Republican age group in the electorate.
Four challenges
What's driving the young people away? Four things.
1. Young people react to the success or failure of the first politicians they know. The twentysomethings of the 1980s, for example, associated the Democratic Party with the malaise of Jimmy Carter -- and the GOP with the triumphs of Ronald Reagan. Today's Republican Party is associated with a wave of disappointments and ...
