Posts Tagged ‘Libertarian Vote’
Fewer Young Voters Self-Identify as Democrats
The New York Times reports that fewer young people (ages 18-29) self-identify as Democrats. Based on Pew data, the percentage of young people who identify or lean Democrat has dropped from 62 percent at the peak in July 2008 to 54 percent late last year.
While the bad economy and lack of jobs is no doubt weighing heavily on young people’s minds, this raises a question. If many young people lean Democrat, but when the economy is bad lean Republican, what exactly are they?
In the “Libertarian Vote in Age of Obama,” David Boaz and I presented evidence that many of these young people can fairly be called libertarian–that is socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. True, many young libertarians got swept up in the excitement over the Obama campaign, voting 59 percent for Obama to 36 percent McCain. But, we argued, all the talk of a generational realignment towards Obama and the Democrats was premature.
This generation of young people are particularly prone to disillusionment. And we hypothesized that if the economy stayed bad, many young people, particularly the more libertarian young people, would sour on Obama and jump ship. Perhaps we’re now seeing some evidence that confirms this.
However, I don’t think Republicans are out of the woods yet. Even if young people vote against Democrats in 2010, Republicans will need to provide a credible alternative that addressed the concerns of a more libertarian-leaning generation of potential young voters. This will be a long-term challenge for a Republicans.
What are the most libertarian states?
Jason Sorens over at the The Fund for American Studies blog has a series of interesting posts attempting to identify the most libertarian states. Using factors that include Ron Paul’s vote share, the number of Ron Paul donors per state, Libertarian Party vote in the 2008 presidential election, and other variables, he concludes:
The states with the most libertarians are Montana, Alaska, New Hampshire, and Idaho, with Nevada, Indiana, Georgia, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, Utah, California, and Colorado following.
Wrong method to identify libertarians
George Mason University economist Dan Klein had an op-ed in yesterday’s WSJ arguing that the Left flunks Econ 101. Using data collected by Zogby, Klein argues that liberals perform worse than conservatives or libertarians on a series of eight questions testing basic economic concepts. The longer paper that inspired the op-ed is here.
Nate Silver criticizes the question wording and survey instrument here. I just wanted to add a quibble with the method Zogby continues to use to identify libertarians. Zogby includes the word “libertarian” as an option in the traditional conservative-moderate-liberal ideology question. Using this method, Zobgy finds that about 7% of respondents are libertarian. And while this is certainly an improvement over the traditional method, it still underestimates libertarians by at least half. David Boaz and I have shown that between 14% and 23% of Americans hold libertarian beliefs. But data shows that there is much confusion about the word libertarian and that the word remains unfamiliar to many people who hold libertarian beliefs.
There is a better method to parse out ideology to identify liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. David Boaz and I have suggested using a three question screen to identify ideology, combining the best question wording from Gallup and the University of Michigan’s American National Election Studies. Researchers at TargetPoint and Politico used this method to parse out ideology in survey of Tea Party participants, finding that half were libertarian and half conservative. The questions are:
- I am going to ask you to choose which of two statements I read comes closer to your own opinion. You might agree to some extent with both, but we want to know which one is closer to your own views: The less government, the better; or, There are more things that government should be doing. [ANES]
- We need a strong government to handle today’s complex economic problems; or, The free market can handle these problems without government being involved. [ANES]
- Some people think the government should promote traditional values in our society. Others think the government should not favor any particular set of values. Which comes closer to your own view? [Gallup]
Of course, additional polling questions cost money. And three questions cost more than one. So if I had to choose only two, I’d pick 2 and 3.
Still, ideology matters. And pollsters do their clients a disservice if they overlook important trends in ideology that make a difference in reading the electorate. For instance, I suspect that pollsters would have detected the rise of the Tea Party, or at least better understood it’s causes and roots, if they had been using this method earlier.
Young people’s attitudes towards the word “libertarian”
Many bloggers commented on last week’s Pew survey that asked whether respondents had positive or negative feelings towards the word “libertarian.” I was curious how this would break by age, and Pew kindly provided us the crosstabs, below:
Two observations. One, young people have more positive feelings towards the word “libertarian” than older Americans and fewer don’t know the word. That’s good news for libertarian brand. But two, young people seem to have more positive feelings about most words, including “progressive,” “civil liberties,” and “family values.” I wonder if young people really know what any of these words mean, or whether this reflects a certain sunny generational optimism? I’d be interested in your thoughts in the comments.
Tea Party split 43% conservative to 42% libertarian
Fascinating new poll out today from Politico & TargetPoint. For the first time, researchers have measured the two camps of the Tea Party ideologically, conservative versus libertarian. Interestingly, Tea Party supporters are split down the middle:
Indeed, combining the responses to some of these questions is a revealing ideological exercise: 43% of attendees said government is doing too much AND that government should promote traditional values, a distinctly conservative view; 42% said government is doing too much AND that government should NOT promote any particular set of values, an ideological view used by the Cato Institute as an indicator of libertarianism (currently 23% of all Americans fit into this category).
Also at Politco today, Boaz and I explore where these libertarians come from. We see the origins of this shift as early as the Obama election, when libertarians swung away from Obama and the Democrats after supporting them in greater percentages in 2004 and 2006. This 2008 swing seems to be an early indicator of the libertarian-inspired anger of the Tea Party that Alex Lundry and his colleagues at TargetPoint are finding today.
UPDATE: Dave Weigel points out some potential biases in the TargetPoint / Politico poll, since they surveyed only DC Tea Party attendees. Nonetheless, this is the first data point on ideological breakdown of Tea Party and an important finding for other pollsters and researchers to verify nationally.
Libertarian sentiment has finally gone mainstream
Or so says Chris Stirewalt, political editor of the Washington Examiner:
Three years ago, the Republican establishment piled scorn on the presidential candidacy of Ron Paul. Today, he is in a statistical tie with President Obama in 2012 polling… Paul will not likely be the next president… But there’s no doubt that hating the government and the powerful interests that pull Washington’s strings has gone from the radical precincts of the Right and Left to the mainstream.
Libertarian Vote
At Foundation for Economic Education, I talk with Mike Van Winkle about the libertarian vote, libertarians uneasy relationship with conservatives and Republicans, and the prospects of libertarians becoming a political force in the 2010 elections and beyond.
For listeners who are joining us from FEE’s website, I’d welcome your comments and thoughts here.
Political future of Millennials uncertain
Much has been written about Pew’s recent study on Milliennals, showing a generation that is more ideologically liberal and pro-government than previous generations. But a counter narrative seems to be emerging, reported at the Fiscal Times:
[Millennials are] collecting unemployment, signing up for food stamps, moving back home, and growing increasingly concerned about the future. A New York Times/CBS poll showed that 46 percent of Americans think the younger generations will be worse off than their parents, up from 32 percent last year. The Millennials — people born around 1980 and coming of age at the turn of the century — are the largest generation in the history of the country, about 80 million strong. In The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace, Ron Alsop wrote, “If there is one overriding perception of the Millennial generation, it’s that these young people have great — and sometimes outlandish — expectations.” Described as confident, tech-savvy and optimistic, they are now seeing the American dream they once felt entitled to slipping through their fingers.
What will be the impact of this trend? Will Millennials become dependent on government or disillusioned with government? As David Boaz and I argued in our Cato study, “Libertarian Vote in Age of Obama,” Millennials seem prone to disillusionment, given the evidence of 9/11 and the Iraq war. And it is also true that there is a larger percentage of libertarian-leaning Millennials than in previous generations. But the ideological outlook for this generation seems very much uncertain.
Regardless, this is an opportunity for us in the business of educating about free markets. We should connect the dots for this generation, between the world of limitless opportunities they have come to expect and the structures of a free society that produce them.
