For all those DFH's out there pining for the good old days, there should be some interest in the fact that the generational voting gap is even larger than it was for the Nixon/McGovern election.
Here's how the various generations break down in terms of how they voted in 2008 compared to the most recent polling for 2012.
While there is some drop-off from millennials for Obama since 2008, their generation is the only one who is overwhelmingly still supportive.
But its clear that the millennials who tip the scales in Obama's direction are Black and Hispanic young people, while white millennials are pretty evenly divided.
One way to look at all of this is to recognize that President Obama has an uphill battle to win with older and whiter America. But given our country's demographics, it is once again a reminder that the Democrats are the party of the future.
One more really fascinating item from the Pew study debunks the myth that voters grow more conservative with age. This chart might take a while to decipher. But perhaps the best way to do so is to think about who was President when you turned 18. Find that name on the chart and you'll see your age group identified right below. The corresponding chart shows how your generation has voted relative to the national average in elections since 1994. For a larger view of this chart, click here.
As Pew reports:
Another major influence on the political character of successive generations is the political climate and events that people in each generation experienced as they reached adulthood and began to form their political identities.
In other words, people who came of voting age during the FDR years continue to vote Democratic while those of the Reagan years continue their Republican leanings. That bodes very well for the generation that has cut their political teeth during the "age of Obama."
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