Impact of generational change on the makeup of the Republican Party

[Skill and Chance]

My general thought is that demographic change will turn quite dramatically in favor of Republicans over the next decade or two.  At some point, virtually all of the young families with 2+ kids being devoutly religious and/or Southern will matter.  Republicans are also doing well enough at flipping recent immigrants that diverse immigration isn't a huge net gain for Dems either at this point.

As for the young R voters, they tend to be more moderate in some ways where they consider many issues that were once highly controversial in the 2010's to be settled (Obamacare, tariffs, probably Obergefell, etc.).  They are probably less socially conservative on average, but a substantial faction are hard right on gender issues  (i.e. believing the change in gender roles from 1970-2020 was a mistake).  This ties into the 1st point because if you still want to get married and start having kids in your 20's today, you are generally a partisan R.

[Skill and Chance]

A lot is riding on whether they can break through with non-white men.  If they do, then GA and VA never go Safe Dem and R's lock up the rest of the South for another generation.

[Skill and Chance]

The old die and the young get older. How will generational change affect the Republican party? Now I'm not talking about how the general population changing will affect its ability to win, I'm more talking about within the party itself.

Polls show that Trump consistently does much better with younger Republican primary voters than DeSantis, and vice versa.

Polls do not necessarily show this with very high consistency, and in 2016 Trump tended to do worse with younger voters, albeit with very strong regional differences; he did slightly better in New England states the younger a voter was, but in the West even in places he won landslides his support with Republicans under 40 was basically nonexistent. (I think better polls tend to show Trump weaker with younger voters, and I expect that whatever the truth is the patterns will probably be regionally divided -- because they were in 2016.)

Younger GOP voters are more likely to be more moderate on social issues, but at the same time are more likely than older Republicans to be invested in the sorts of culture war battles that often begin online.

Younger Republicans are certainly less hardline overall on issues like abortion, drugs, and gay marriage, which is downstream from being less religious. "The sort of culture war battles that often begin online" feels too non-specific for me to comment.

They are less economically hardliner than older Republicans,

This is extremely false. Younger Republicans have consistently voted for more fiscally hardline candidates, like Paul in '12 and Cruz in '16, and Pew tends to show them having more consistently fiscally hardline positions than older voters.

and notably they are WAY more isolationist/non-interventionist than older Republicans, having a massive polling divide over Ukraine aid.

This is probably true at the moment, but in general you often have enormous turnarounds on foreign policy issues over the course of a decade; consider that Republicans polled as broadly interventionist in the 1980s, isolationist in the 1990s, and interventionist again in the 2000s. I think we don't have a good idea of what the GOP's position on foreign policy will look like 10 years from now, much less looking further into the future.

Overall with generational change, the party seems to be heading in a more moderate direction in some ways, but a more Trumpy and populist direction in others.

How do you think this will affect the party heading into the future?

Overall the party is half of society, so it's going to be less white and less religious almost by default. (Though relative to the societal average note that these gaps could grow; if mainstream society is getting more secular, but an evangelical counterculture is growing and mostly loyal to the GOP, then the pattern one imagines is the median voter secularizing a lot, but the median GOP voter secularizing only a little. The difference between them might well grow). Beyond that probably both parties will be much lower-trust organizations down the road. Beyond that the GOP is still getting more ideologically fiscally conservative, and it's hard to imagine that trend reversing absent either a very large societal crisis forcing new perspectives on government activity (think a world war, or a larger pandemic than COVID), or issue shifts associated with having a much older population dependent on pensions.

I'm more curious as to what happens with the Democrats. Does formerly Republican big money donors infiltrate their party pushing them to the right economically, or does it, for better or worse, continue becoming a more progressive party?

Continued declining trust in institutions, and the likelihood of peak educational enrollment being hit in the 2020s, is going to cause a crisis in the Democratic Party; it is already the case that there are huge culture gaps between Democratic politicians under the age of 60 or so and their voters. I think in its general style it will come to resemble the modern GOP more, particularly as it is forced into an Overton Window which is downstream of SCOTUS decisions on the administrative state. My expectation here is that the GOP is going to keep moving right on regulations/taxes, and that to some extent the Democratic party will be dragged along with it, though it will remain far to the left of the GOP. 'Big money donors' aren't what's pushing the parties right, though; it's the right's general ability to evince a worldview which is compelling to those who are cut off from mainstream American educated culture.

I have not seen any stats on this, but anecdotally ... my Republican-leaning friends have kids earlier AND have more kids than my Democratic-leaning friends.  Birth rate is a FAIRLY important thing demographically speaking.

There are statistics on this. The conservative fertility advantage emerged in the 1990s, was fairly small for several decades, but began growing rapidly after circa 2015, and is now very large. I can go hunt for my source, but 2015 was the year in which 'fraction of births to white mothers' hit a trough; it has since been rising, and in the 2020s is again a majority of births. The second derivative of the demographics rates chart looks quite favorable for the GOP. (Of course another question here is retention rates).

Note that this is another way in which 'GOP culture' is becoming increasingly different from the American mainstream, though.

Honestly in my experience, younger Republicans are even bigger freaks than their older counterparts. I think that the party will become more extreme as time goes on.

I feel that young Republicans are at least significantly more hardline on issues like guns. If that counts for anything.

Yeah. I can't find my source on this, but while there's very little generation gap on 'normal' gun issues like background checks and handguns, if you go to 'gun extremism' issues -- like legalizing automatic weapons -- then you get that this is an unheard-of position among old voters but a majority position among pro-gun voters under 35. I think it is possible that the gun debate will shift to an entirely new field of issues (like legalizing much more dangerous weapons than AR-15s, or deliberately spreading gun rights around the globe, as some GOP politicians have advocated and as I've, purely anecdotally, often heard advocated by young Republicans for how nonexistent of an idea it is in the general public sphere), in which you might see left-wing victories. That'll require capitulation on the current set of gun issues, though.

My general thought is that demographic change will turn quite dramatically in favor of Republicans over the next decade or two.  At some point, virtually all of the young families with 2+ kids being devoutly religious and/or Southern will matter.  Republicans are also doing well enough at flipping recent immigrants that diverse immigration isn't a huge net gain for Dems either at this point.

On the one hand, it's extremely underrated that one of the most powerful predictors of trending right in the post-2016 era has been "exposure to non-English-language news outlets". On the other hand, even if you take quite optimistic projections of ideological retention rate, I think the earliest you'd see a real impact from birthrate differentials is in the 2040s, when the first post-2015 births start reaching voting age, and in practice it'll probably take longer than that. And who knows what the issues will be by then. (Although the first inklings can be seen already -- the difference is largest in wealthy areas and it's already a stereotype of the 2020s that in wealthy areas the parents tend to be far to the right of the school board, which is elected by the community as a whole.) Also I suspect that, relative to society as a whole, the GOP hit a trough with young voters in the 2008 cycle and they're unlikely to vote that far left again.

As for the young R voters, they tend to be more moderate in some ways where they consider many issues that were once highly controversial in the 2010's to be settled (Obamacare, tariffs, probably Obergefell, etc.).

Obamacare is not at all a settled issue; the next GOP trifecta will at least try to repeal it, essentially no matter who the POTUS is. Tariffs are an issue that changes generationally; it was an issue in the 1800s and it'll probably still be an issue in the 2100s. I think gay marriage is settled in the court of public opinion but I'm not at all sure that a future harder-right SCOTUS majority -- which given Senate makeup probably will be coming about -- won't want to revisit Obergefell at some point, especially if we have further controversies about marriage definitions (like for polygamy).

Honestly in my experience, younger Republicans are even bigger freaks than their older counterparts. I think that the party will become more extreme as time goes on.

I think that you are a high-trust person and you are correct that younger Republicans have much less trust in institutions than older Republicans, leading to greater divergence from mainstream educated culture (which you represent). I think you are broadly correct that they will get more extreme in this sense. I think this is something happening to American society as a whole, though, and Democrats will struggle not to at least begin drifting in this direction. Not to harp one poll (particularly an issue poll, which are always suspect), but note that one of the top topics in US General Discussion today is a poll showing a decline in belief in climate change among Democrats. IDK if that's real, but the energies that want to reject the sources of consensus understanding exist everywhere and Democrats will be forced to throw them some sort of bones if they wish to remain competitive.

The trouble in terms of political impact is that the "R's have 4 kids, D's have no kids" areas are very disproportionately megacities that vote 80%D/20%R today.  That's a very low baseline to build from and in the short-medium run, it just makes their coalition less and less geographically efficient.  In the near/medium term, the most likely positive impact for R's is 1. South Florida 2. keeping the  Houston/Dallas/San Antonio metros close enough to save Texas 3. maybe keeping Virginia interesting.   

However, the flip side of this is Dems seeding several small Western/Plains states with WFH techies and certain states becoming "abortion tourism" destinations after all surrounding areas ban (looking at you, Kansas).  That's why I don't think the impending permanent R senate/SCOTUS majority takes hold water anymore like they did pre-COVID.  So I'm not expecting an all R appointed SCOTUS anytime soon.  If anything, this is likely the R high water mark today. 

In the meantime, I do agree with you on much of the post-Great Society administrative state getting ruled unconstitutional, and this position being broadly popular.  Dems will adapt and handling more and more at the state level should help bring the overall political temperature down in the medium-long run.  In particular, this will make any kind of federal climate change policy beyond tech/infrastructure subsidies practically impossible.

As for Obamacare, the particulars may change, but it's been 13 years.  The idea of highly subsidized health care plans for poorer than average young people with preexisting conditions is baked in, IMO almost to the same degree as Medicare/Medicaid are baked in.  I could see it being remembered as the last great federal program of the post-New Deal era, but I would reasonably expect more of the details of how to arrange it get handed over to the states over time. 

Regarding Obergefell, there is about 1/3rd of the federal judiciary that would overturn it if they got to SCOTUS, but they have to get past the Collins/Murkowski/Sununu wing of the GOP first.  Maybe Dobbs is the first sign that the gender role traditionalist faction will win it all, but I doubt this after 2022 results.  Bostock IMO is more vulnerable, in part because Congress could just overrule it by rewriting that part of the law.

[Skill and Chance]

The trouble in terms of political impact is that the "R's have 4 kids, D's have no kids" areas are very disproportionately megacities that vote 80%D/20%R today.  That's a very low baseline to build from and in the short-medium run, it just makes their coalition less and less geographically efficient.  In the near/medium term, the most likely positive impact for R's is 1. South Florida 2. keeping the  Houston/Dallas/San Antonio metros close enough to save Texas 3. maybe keeping Virginia interesting.

I don't know that this is true; maps of white fertility tend to actually correspond pretty closely to 'GOP strength', although there's also just greater fertility in the Plains (especially) and Mountain West (less so).

https://twitter.com/Empty_America/status/1628790361152802818
One of the patterns is indeed that the conservative advantage grows the wealthier a community is (and you maybe see that with NJ marked a darker color on that map). But I don't know that wealthy communities with lots of kids are so disproportionately found in giant megacities, and I think that a big part of the effect will be rural areas in Plains states to some degree continuing to redden. (A county-by-county version of this map, which I'm struggling to find now, has lots of bleed from ND and SD into rural MN and IA; I think in those places there's still a while to go in terms of how far rural areas will trend Republican).

However, the flip side of this is Dems seeding several small Western/Plains states with WFH techies and certain states becoming "abortion tourism" destinations after all surrounding areas ban (looking at you, Kansas).  That's why I don't think the impending permanent R senate/SCOTUS majority takes hold water anymore like they did pre-COVID.  So I'm not expecting an all R appointed SCOTUS anytime soon.  If anything, this is likely the R high water mark today.

KS is outright losing population, and it doesn't actually do very well in terms of attracting college graduates to live there. There's been an enormous Democratic trend among the ones they have, but in the super-long-run, if anything MO might be likelier to reverse.



Among current small deeply-R states, I think the only one with a very left-wing in-migration pattern is Alaska -- which I can easily see being very Democratic in a few decades, to be sure. But I think that the Supreme Court will move in the direction of whatever party has a Senate majority most of the time, and it's really hard to see that being the Democrats without some absolutely enormous realignment. I don't think the Court will even stop getting more conservative -- not even start getting more-progressive, just halt -- until there's a very lengthy period of consistent left-wing Senate control.   

I agree with your implication that there isn't as much reason to suspect that higher fertility rates among nonwhite US residents would benefit Rs on net, even if those voters are less D than their lower-fertility counterparts of various backgrounds.

Fascinating to see how many states experience net "brain drain" of college graduates, and that OR and TN do better than the median state despite being neutral on this metric.

Regarding the 1st map, that's more what I was getting at- that the GOP has the most to gain (relatively) where non-conservative birthrates are at their lowest.  However, in many of these areas, it's the white population (particularly white college grads) that is the most ideologically liberal (if not yet the most Democratic-voting).  Therefore, I don't think a map of non-Hispanic white birthrates really addresses the question.  My thesis is more that NYC and L.A. could come to be dominated by devoutly religious non-white groups with large families over the next generation or so as the white liberals there generally don't have kids.  Everyone is still having a couple  kids on the Plains (and in Texas and the Mormon states), presumably including the local liberals.     

Not sure how much the second map really correlates with political trends, though?  Several of the dark blue states are clearly getting more Dem while Tennessee and North Carolina aren't clearly getting more Dem.  New York takes in more new college grads than almost anywhere else, but it's quite clearly getting more R!  Florida also doesn't look like a state trending dramatically right on this map.   Vosem, are you as sanguine for Texas Dems as the yellow coloring would suggest? 

Nonetheless, it is interesting that Michigan is holding its own with college grad retention and it didn't zoom right in the Trump era like many (myself included) expected.  Finally, I'll bet a lot of the college grads New England and New Jersey lose to NYC and MD/VA lose to DC stay for a just a few years and end up back in the suburbs when they are having-kids age.  In any event, in most states, between 1/4 and 1/3 of people graduated college, so this probably isn't the primary driver of election outcomes...

If it does end up being the primary driver of election outcomes, then yes, taken literally, Dems would be all in on the 10-15 biggest states and likely end up with the EC advantage while Reps would probably hold the senate for 30 years:



     

[Skill and Chance]

Another interesting aspect of this is (mostly) white groups with cultural distinctives leading to much higher than average birthrates.  What generally happens is that birthrates trend quickly toward the national average once a distinctive population reaches a certain scale- the Mormons are perhaps the clearest example.   But by the time this happened, the Mormons functionally gained political control of 2 states and meaningful influence in a couple of others!  For example, could a couple of rural states eventually become >20% Amish?  I get that it's unreasonable for the US as a whole to become 20% Amish no matter how high the rural Amish birthrate goes, because going to that scale would mean running out of land and require adopting city life, but there's no reason they couldn't become a huge influence in a couple of rural states if the birthrate for the rest of the population falls low enough and more people move away than move in.

[Skill and Chance]

I still think we're understating the medium-long political impacts of the "ruralization" of the laptop class that has been underway for the past 3 years, particularly in the Mountain West.  Similarly, R's and R-leaning employers have been flooding into Texas and Florida.  Then you have abortion, which is giving voters in places historically more Republican than culturally conservative like the Plains (particularly if it stays mostly legal in KS and NE into the long run) and Northern New England second thoughts, while they gain votes in places more culturally conservative than Republican, megacities generally and pretty much the entire cultural South save for Atlanta (even Virginia isn't the Dem cakewalk many expected after 2020).  The abortion bans could also help lock in the structurally higher Southern birthrates.  This is why I'm quite contrarian and bullish on Senate Dems in the long run while also being sanguine for R's in the the presidential PV and probably the House as they are forced to pivot more and more toward big state concerns.