Back in 2008, voters under 30 backed congressional Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 63 to 34. Ouch. This time, with much lower turnout among young voters, the gap was 57 to 40. One assumes that many self-identified progressives stayed home, which implies that the margin would have been more like 60 to 38 or 59 to 39 if youth turnout had been higher. Yet this nevertheless strikes me as a decent-sized shift that the right can build on. Another six point swing — unlikely, perhaps, but arguendo — gets you to 51 to 46. And you don’t have to get there in two years. We’re often told that early voting patterns are robust. But we’re also told, at least in the realm of consumer brands, that the Great Stagnation has led to a new openness as people, particularly young people, break with received patterns. That is the hope of advocates of walkable urbanism, for example, who want younger Americans to embrace a less automobile-dependent way of life.
This is why I’m so fond of Pentagram’s proposed brand reboot for the GOP. Of course, you’d want the “renew-reinvest” theme to be more than a slogan.