When did young voters begin to favor the Democrats?

[hopper]

2008 with Obama and the Bush W. Presidency failed.

[hopper]

I believe during the Clinton era, but their support wasn't truly locked in until 2004. Clinton left a positive mark on young voters during his second term, but demographic and other changes really began to tilt that bloc towards Democrats in the mid-2000s. Now the weight of racial minorities and a substantially less Republican-leaning generation of white voters have created an age group largely hostile to Republicans.

At least according to exit polling (which are not gospel on this sort of thing but generally backed up by poll subsamples at the time so reasonably believable), Bush narrowly won 18-25-year-olds in 2000. Thus, they were marginally more Republican than the nation as a whole, as Gore overall won the popular vote very narrowly. There is generally no evidence that younger voters were voting more for the Democrats than older voters in the 90s or earlier as well.

The shift to young voters supporting Democrats much more strongly than the nation as a whole first manifested itself at the presidential level in the 2004 election, when Kerry won younger voters by about ten points while Bush won the popular vote overall for a net deviation from the nation of about D+12, far greater in either direction than had ever been the case before. That margin expanded dramatically again to closer to D+40 in the 2008 election and has not materially changed since then.

The causes are complicated. The stronger socially conservative turn of the Republican Party generally during the Bush administration (including especially the same-sex marriage fights), increasing diversity among younger voters (although even younger whites are more Democratic than whites overall), the Iraq War, 9/11 and its polarization of international affairs, the financial crisis, the general incompetence and, in its later years, deep unpopularity of the Bush administration and strong political messaging by Barack Obama surely all played at least some role.

This.

[hopper]

At least according to exit polling (which are not gospel on this sort of thing but generally backed up by poll subsamples at the time so reasonably believable), Bush narrowly won 18-25-year-olds in 2000. Thus, they were marginally more Republican than the nation as a whole, as Gore overall won the popular vote very narrowly. There is generally no evidence that younger voters were voting more for the Democrats than older voters in the 90s or earlier as well.

If you want to go by how much more Democratic they voted compared to the nation, then sure I suppose in 1992/1996 you could say it was rather unremarkable, but I don't really see it that way. How voters vote in their youth can be highly suggestive of their future, and in Clinton's case, those voters have displayed modest Democratic leanings even as they aged. Bill Clinton was a popular president who presided over a booming economy, so the idea that young people growing up under him may have taken a shine to Democrats is not far-fetched. All presidents, good or bad, have an effect on the young people who grow up under their tenure.

What you said about Bush winning some portions of younger voters, sure, I think that could suggest that Clinton's impact among 90s youth was more isolated to him and the circumstances of the time, and was not really connected to the main trend that caused young people to begin heavily trending Democratic in 2004-on.

2006 on. The Dems won the 18-29 age group in US House Races 60-38% in a CNN exit poll that I just looked at in 2006.