05 March 2010 // 09:54 am // 0 Comments
Take the Next Generation
Recent Republican poll numbers are a bit like being ahead by a touchdown in the first quarter of a football game. It’s a great start, but there’s way too much time on the clock to get comfortable. Winning in November is going to require perfecting a play that Republicans have not executed in decades: Winning the Next Generation vote.
Elections are determined by the success in turning out supporters through traditional get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts and in winning self-described independents. Next generation voters are both the new frontier of GOTV and the bulk of truly undecided / independent voters. In 2010, candidates who engage and win the next generation will guide us into the next decade.
Think back to the last off-cycle general election, in 2006. Then, as now, Iowa had a hotly contested Governor’s race, an anti-incumbent feel, record-breaking campaign budgets and huge media spends. It seemed the perfect storm for breakout voter involvement. Older voters did their part, with an amazing 77% of Republicans over the age of 50 voting.
Yet an anemic 36% of registered Republicans under 35 years-old showed up to vote. (Iowa’s voter statistics in 2006 can be found here.) The numbers don’t lie. Republican politics has been successful at turning out older voters, and equally successful at turning off young voters. They simply stay home.
Many came to believe that disengaged youth was an unavoidable truth of politics. But then the Obama Generation came of age.
Goal for 2010: Awaken the next generation of conservatives
Fast forward to 2008. When it came to turning out their own party, Democrats lost the GOTV battle in Iowa for every age group, save one: Iowans aged 18-34. Registered young Democrats were brought to the polls, and young independents who expressed interest in Obama’s ideas were targeted for absentee ballots. Democrats won the next generation vote by a decisive margin, and as a result won the independent vote as well. That single demographic shift, between 2006 and 2008, dramatically changed Iowa politics. Amazingly, 49% of young voters call themselves independent. That Next Generation independent block was the sleeping giant of politics, and Democrats woke them, wooed them and won them with the help of a magnetic candidate, online tools and targeted messaging.
Bad habits, once formed, are hard to break. If Republicans do not offer an alternative in 2010, we risk losing a generation of voters as they become repeat customers of the Democrats.
The GOP’s weak turnout numbers among young voters are a symptom of a deeper issue. A thirty-something friend of mine, who is a veteran of multiple campaigns and an active county central committee member, said to me this week, “It’s not that I’ve abandoned the Republican Party, it’s just that I don’t think conservative leaders are even trying to talk to me anymore.”
The issue is simple. Most campaigns craft their message to appeal to the blocks of voters they need to win, and the average registered Republican is over 50 years old. Is it any wonder young conservatives feel like they do not have a political home?
Nearly everyone will acknowledge this as a problem. But unless we do something about it, we will continue to lose the younger generation. Sure, we may pick up wins in individual cycles, but the demographic shift will steadily eat away at our ability to counter the liberal agenda of big government, higher taxes and increasing intrusion of the state into our families and communities. We have to win the next generation back. It is not only smart short-term politics, it is essential for the long-term.
The Five-Step Solution
It’s not too late. Liberals are now a clear minority (21% according to a January poll by the Wall Street Journal) and, as we saw in Massachusetts, are on the ropes. It is time for conservatives to offer an alternative. Here’s what we have to do to win back the Next Generation:
1) Broaden our target audience. I am not talking about compromising on conservative principles that unify us. It is about embracing a conservative audience that is deeper and younger than Republican registrations and county meetings suggest. Speaking to young conservatives makes the GOP’s ideas relevant to them.
2) Get the message right. A great example is the recent Des Moines Register poll, linked here, about finding efficiencies in state government. Older Iowans did not mind considering, “Layoff state employees.” Young Iowans hated the wording, and had to be told it was about “Consolidated, efficient services that will require fewer state employees.” A simple change in wording made all the difference in winning the Next Generation to the necessity of smaller government.
3) Use on-line tools. A truism of politics is that whoever controls the dominant interactive media wins elections. Talk-radio was a mainstay of conservative politics from the 1980s through the middle of the last decade. The mobile internet is the new talk-radio. Strategically, we have to get competitive on the web.
4) Create community around conservatism. Asking a young Iowan for a vote, without having engaged them in the process, feels inauthentic to them. We need a complete community that brings together ideas, modern organizing tools using platforms like Twitter and Facebook, and a way to help small donors know their $25 or $250 has a measurable impact. (Tomorrow’s big donors start small. And small donors nearly always vote.)
5) Have engaging candidates. For young, independent-minded voters, politics is about the person. In 2008, hundreds of candidates rode to a decisive win behind Barack Obama’s “cool” factor. In Iowa, in 2010, we must find the leader who not only relates to the next generation, but captures their imagination, their enthusiasm and their votes.
The Pay-off
If we increase voter turnout by 5% among young conservatives and capture about 5% of the next generation independents, the pay-off is huge. That small shift in the elections would have won 3 more state senate seats and 4 more state house seats in the past cycle. It could make all the difference between conservatives winning or losing in 2010.
Conservatives, let’s unite around Iowa’s next generation. Let’s send them this message: You have a home in the Republican Party. We welcome your ideas, your leadership and your passion. 2010 is the year you can write your generation’s story and help create a great future for Iowa.
