Rare News Desk
Young voters are the great enigma of politics. A seemingly endless supply of money has been invested in consulting firms, pollsters, and thousands of Atlantic articles trying to answer a simple question: what is it that Millennials actually believe? Everyone in Washington knows how to pander to seniors—preserve Medicare, don’t bad-mouth the military—but appealing to young people is a much more confounding task.
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Last week, Rare released the results of its very first Under-40 poll, which looked at the trending opinions of young voters across the country. Wrapped in the data were a few surprises, which might help us understand Millennials a little better.
1. Millennials no longer support Obama
President Obama was held up as a cipher for youth opinion in 2008, the first post-Vietnam president who truly understood the Millennial generation. Sixty-six percent of voters aged 18-29 supported Obama in 2008, and 60 percent supported him in 2012.
No more. The Rare Under-40 poll found that Obama would only get 51 percent of the youth vote if the election were held today. That doesn’t mean those voters are falling for Republicans—Mitt Romney only garnered 37 percent—but rather that they’re growing dissatisfied with Obama-era Democrats. That discontent could make them open to a Republican presidential candidate who seems independent from the larger GOP, like Rand Paul or Chris Christie.
And out of the entire Rare poll sample, comprising voters aged 18 to 40, Obama was tied in a hypothetical matchup with Romney, with each candidate winning 44 percent. Democrats should make sure they don’t take the youth vote for granted.
2. One third of young voters want to impeach the president
Impeaching Obama is often held up as a dark right-wing fantasy. And yet young people are a lot more supportive than you might think. According to the Rare Under-40 poll, one third of voters aged 18 to 40 think Obama should be impeached, while 58 percent disagree.
There was a gaping political divide on this question, with 60 percent of self-identified Republicans supporting impeachment, compared to only 28 percent of independents and 11 percent of Democrats. But given strong youth support for Obama in both his presidential campaigns, it’s stunning that so many of them now want to tossing him out of office.
A recent CNN poll found that 35 percent of voters of all ages support impeachment. So young people line up with the general populace, even though older voters tend to be more conservative. Obama is never going to be impeached, but our data suggests the idea isn’t as radical as many believe.
3. Young people think alcohol is a bigger threat to society than tobacco
That Millennials don’t worry about legal marijuana is hardly surprising. Pot has always created a generational divide, with older people tending to oppose and younger people tending to support. Sure enough, when asked by the Rare Under-40 poll whether they consider pot, alcohol, or tobacco to be the biggest threat to society, only 13 percent of respondents selected marijuana.
It’s the other two choices that were startling. Forty-seven percent—nearly half—of young voters think alcohol is the most destructive substance, while 27 percent said tobacco. This despite the fact that alcohol has long been viewed as a more socially acceptable drug than tobacco, and the number of commercials, warnings, and health classes about the dangers of smoking was far greater than those about alcohol.
So why pick on booze? Probably because just about all the voters that Rare surveyed were exposed to modern binge drinking culture in college. The unique American combination of easily available spirits and a 21-and-over drinking age has turned plenty of college nights into an alcoholic free-for-all. The dangers of that drinking culture are often overstated, but nevertheless seeing them up close seems to have influenced young people. Their thinking is: I’ve been there and I’d rather not go back.
4. Heavy majorities of Millennials trust their local police departments
After the shooting death of Michael Brown and the response by militarized police to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, many said that America had reached a tipping point with the police. Reason’s Nick Gillespie heralded a “libertarian moment in Ferguson.” After decades of ignoring African-American concerns over law enforcement, now the public was paying attention.
And maybe they were. But according to the Rare Under-40 poll, which was taken in the week following the Brown shooting, their attitudes didn’t shift much. Sixty percent of young people said they trusted their local police department, while 24 percent disagreed. Even if you take into account semantics—“trusting your local police department” versus “trusting police in general”—that’s a very decisive proportion.
Even more surprisingly, a plurality of young African Americans trusted the local police. Again you can think deep into the results—urban blacks versus non-urban?—but the result is still counterintuitive. Those skeptical of the police still have their work cut out for them.
