Will Generation Z be more conservative?

[Virginiá]

18-24 year olds last year was Clinton's strongest age group. It's hard to see citizens just 1-4 years younger swinging wildly against Democrats, especially considering their demographic makeup. Putting aside this particular study, one should note that high school students can and often do change their views at least somewhat, and that young adulthood (18-25 specifically) is a time where partisan loyalties tend to form. In other words, even if they genuinely were more conservative, I'd wait for them to go through college first and see where they end up.

That being said, I could see gen z white voters to swing more Republican. Perhaps not by a lot, but maybe back to the national average for white voters. I dunno, we'll see. We've also had this discussion a few times in the 2020 presidential election board and in presidential election trends.

[Virginiá]

This special pleading is precisely why I strongly opposed Virginia for mod. I'm never a fan of special pleading. I'm a fan of correct prediction.

Why are you so obsessed with this?

[Virginiá]

18-24 year olds last year was Clinton's strongest age group.

I recall seeing data suggesting that 18-19 yos voted well to the right of those in their early 20s.

Was that for 2016? I remember in 2012, there was evidence that 18-20 year olds voted pretty strongly for Romney, at least according to a look at EP data, yet 4 years later they basically voted the opposite way when you look at the 18-24 group. My point being that we need to watch how these people vote over several elections before drawing conclusions.

[Virginiá]

What happens if Trump fails miserably as president?

Were 2 months in and he hasnt accomplished anything. What happens when there is no wall, no jobs coming back, etc and rural America continues to decline?

This is a big part of my opinion. How well Trump does will affect how these young people who are currently at least open to Republicans behave politically in the future. If Trump bombs really bigly, whether it be through a recession and/or mass corruption, then he could completely stain the GOP's brand among these young kids. I'd argue that he is far more likely to do that than he is to "turn everything around" and make the GOP shine.

From a partisan perspective, I'm not overly concerned. If Republicans went from winning 36% of 18-29 year olds to winning 41%, it's not that big of a deal. That's why Democrats pulling such huge margins among these generation(s) is so damaging to the GOP. It makes it hard to recover.