A Question about Older Voters

[Awsi Dooger]

52. The so-called Silent Generation is more white, more religious and therefore more Republican

I saved this Pew link a few years ago. It is the best breakdown I've seen. The Silent Generation represents Americans born between 1928 and 1945. That group married earlier, is 78% white, very religious, and everybody who turned 18 years old during the Eisenhower administration is a member of the Silent Generation.

I've mentioned many times that presidential approval rating at the time a person turns 18 years old is a great predictor of ideology and partisan alignment. Eisenhower's average approval rating was 65% during his two terms as measured by Gallup, and it was barely below 70% during his first term. Americans who came of age during the '50s were simply more predisposed to think like Republicans. They have carried it throughout their lives and vote dependably.

For some reason beginning about 25 years ago the gap started to widen regarding senior citizens voting at higher rate than those in their 40s and 50s. Most of the trends have favored Democrats in the past decade or so but that trend tilts in the other direction.

Of course, the reality is that fewer members of the Silent Generation will be alive in 2020 than 2016, and so forth.

There is a really great table low in this link that is titled, "2014 Partisan Advantages by Year of Birth." Note that everything is left of center all the way down to about 1945. That table is perhaps the best depiction I've ever seen of that 18 year old reality. You'll see the quick sharp leftward shift from people born in that year compared to ones born just a few years earlier. Those people were turning 18 under JFK and not Eisenhower.

Also note the rightward shift more toward balanced among people born in the late '50s through mid '60s. Those people turned 18 when Carter was unpopular, or when Reagan was popular.

Links like this are the reason I always rely on big picture foundational realities and not obsession over the latest trivial daily variable. That type of thing can only serve to distract and confuse, yet the cable news programs know nothing else.

http://www.people-press.org/2015/09/03/the-whys-and-hows-of-generations-research/