Why did Nixon capture the youth vote in 1972?
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  Why did Nixon capture the youth vote in 1972?
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Author Topic: Why did Nixon capture the youth vote in 1972?  (Read 801 times)
MiddleRoad
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« on: June 16, 2022, 08:33:00 PM »

In 1972, Nixon captured 48% of the 18-24 year old category and 52% of all voters under 30 over all

How/why was Nixon able to capture such a large portion of the youth vote in 1972? Wouldn’t McGovern have been a more “youth friendly” candidate, even without any hindsight?
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Vice President Christian Man
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« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2022, 10:39:25 PM »

1. Despite his corruption, Nixon was a great president, one of the best of the 20th century. This was before Watergate and if it wasn't for that, he would've been in a similar position historically as T Roosevelt and Eisenhower.

2 Nixon was able to out AOC McGovern using his rhetoric. George McGovern wasn't a Socialist by any stretch of the imagination but Nixon painted him to be some kind of radical Marxist. It was a tool that the GOP has reused in almost every presidential election cycle since then but it hasn't been successful with the possibility of 1984 because of how the economy improved during Reagan's first term.

3. Vietnam was dying down which helped to boost his popularity around the time of the election.

4. The national environment improved greatly during Nixon's first term, especially compared to the preceding Summer.

5. It's likely that some 18-20 year old's regardless of ideology were just grateful that it was under Nixon's presidency that they were able to vote and wanted to thank him at the polls.
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shua
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« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2022, 03:45:07 PM »

McGovern did better among the youth vote compared to how he did overall than any major party candidate from then until Obama.  But he was up against general approval of Nixon and the perception that McGovern was out of step from a lot of the country.
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Statilius the Epicurean
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« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2022, 03:57:16 PM »

Winning 60% of the overall the popular vote probably helped.
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Agonized-Statism
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« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2022, 07:29:27 PM »

How was turnout for 18-24 year olds that year?
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« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2022, 03:01:45 PM »

For every hippie what the institutions of culture and governance moral panic'd about, you had a handful of well-adjusted unideological kids with short hair who typically kept their heads down, for every ten hippies a Beatle bonfire type, and probably for every few hundred a Yippie turned Weatherman who was radicalized away from participating in electoralism at all by the failures of 1968 in this country and worldwide.
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2022, 03:07:50 PM »

Nixon and Reagan and Bush H had moderate tendencies not f or Civil Rights but pro immigration, Reagan passed immigration reform after Bush W Rs stoped passing immigration reform that's why CO, NV and VA flipped in 2006 from R to D and McCain whom came out of Nixon administration was pro Environment
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President Johnson
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« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2022, 03:35:53 PM »

I would imagine that planning to end the draft and the 26th Amendment also helped him gain support among young people.

Also, wasn't the youth vote way less Democratic than today? Reagan did reasonably well here as well.
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FEMA Camp Administrator
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« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2022, 08:11:36 PM »

He was "hip" and "with it". Remember, he went on "Laugh-In" and chatted with hippies at the Lincoln Memorial.
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progressive85
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« Reply #9 on: June 22, 2022, 09:54:15 PM »

I think it goes by generation.  Despite all the focus on young hippies and the youth of the counterculture, most young people in the early 70s were probably moderate, and many were conservative.

Young voters strongly favored Ronald Reagan in the 1980s over the very weak Democratic candidates (this generation remains favorable to the Republicans to this day).

In 1972, you could have had a young, northern liberal Republican voting for Nixon and in the same election a young, southern conservative Democrat that voted for Nixon as well... and they might have both voted for Carter in 1976...
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