From Vox: We’ve been totally wrong about Hillary Clinton’s young voter problem - And a big new study proves it.

A great, critical look at what polls do and do not tell us.

It also allows a critical look at media coverage of the race - one of the big takeaways: the third party movements are overhyped.

- Click here for the article.

The conventional wisdom about young voters in the 2016 presidential election goes something like this: White millennials are backing third-party candidates in unprecedented numbers, creating a major problem for Hillary Clinton.

It’s a theory that’s driven hundreds of news articles and think pieces. I myself have advanced it in stories here at Vox. Clinton’s campaign appears to be taking the threat seriously.

But Jon Rogowski, a political scientist at Harvard, makes a pretty convincing case that this idea is wrong — or at least vastly overstated. Earlier this week, he and the researchers at GenForward released the most thorough study I’ve seen to date of young voters and the 2016 presidential election.

Its findings suggest that the way we’ve been looking at “Clinton’s millennial problem” is upside down. Contrary to several other pollsters, the researchers found that far fewer young people will actually vote for the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson or the Green Party’s Jill Stein than has been widely reported. (This isn’t totally surprising, as third-party support historically falls off as we get closer to Election Day.)

Instead, Clinton’s millennial voter problem appears to come from a different source altogether: Young voters of color seem to be far less excited about her than they were about Barack Obama. That trend — rather than a largely imaginary groundswell of support for Johnson and Stein — poses the biggest obstacle to reassembling the Democratic Party’s youth voting bloc in 2016.

From the Pew Research Center: Younger adults more likely than their elders to prefer reading news

The generational shift to digital media continues.

- Click here for the article.
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When it comes to technology’s influence on America’s young adults, reading is not dead – at least not the news. When asked whether one prefers to read, watch or listen to their news, younger adults are far more likely than older ones to opt for text, and most of that reading takes place on the web.

Overall, more Americans prefer to watch their news (46%) than to read it (35%) or listen to it (17%), a Pew Research Center survey found earlier this year. But that varies dramatically by age. Those ages 50 and older are far more likely to prefer watching news over any other method: About half (52%) of 50- to 64-year-olds and 58% of those 65 and older would rather watch the news, while roughly three-in-ten (29% and 27%, respectively) prefer to read it. Among those under 50, on the other hand, roughly equal portions – about four-in-ten of those ages 18-29 and ages 30-49 – opt to read their news as opt to watch it.

Most of that reading among younger adults is through digital text rather than print. About eight-in-ten (81%) of 18- to 29-year-olds who prefer to read their news also prefer to get their news online; just 10% choose a print newspaper. The breakdown among 30- to 49-year-olds is similar. News readers who are ages 50-64, on the other hand, are more evenly split between a preference for the web (41%) and print paper (40%), while those 65 and older mostly still turn to the print paper (63%).

There is also evidence that younger adults who prefer to watch their news are beginning to make the transition to doing so on a computer rather than a television. While 57% of 18- to 29-year-old news watchers prefer to get their news via TV, 37% cite the web as their platform of choice. That is far more than any other age group, including double the percentage of 30- to 49-year-old news watchers.

The Pew Research Center on Millenials

For a look at past stories about the group from click here.

For more on age and politics:

The politics of American generations: How age affects attitudes and voting behavior.

Here's a nice graph from the story:

From the Atlantic: Millennials' Political Views Don't Make Any Sense

Something to chew on in class today. Younger folks are full of paradoxes and conflicting viewpoints it seems. Aren't we all?

- Click here for the article.

Three major take-aways from the article:

1. Millennials are more liberal than the rest of the country, particularly on social issues, but they get more economically conservative when they make more money.

2. Millennials don't know what they're talking about when it comes to economics.

3. Far less important, but entertaining nonetheless: Millennials don't know what socialism is, but they think it sounds nice.

Millennials and the 2016 election

For classroom discussion - and a written assignment for a small handful of students:

In 2305's section on public opinion we will looks at the concept of a political generation. Most students are members of the millennial generation - though another generation is creeping up behind them. I've heard them referred to as the Homeland Generation, and as Generationi (get it?).

I want you to consider what unique impact each generation is likely to have on the outcome of the 2016 election - but focus especially ion the millennial generation

For info:

- The Whys and Hows of Generations Research.
- How Millennials Will Impact the 2016 Election Without Voting.
- Clinton Maintains Big National Lead, Millennials Optimistic on Sanders.
- Do College Students’ Votes Really Matter in an Election?
- Will Millennials Determine The 2016 Presidential Election? New Poll Looks At Their Voting Plans.

The Millennials

Most of you - my 2305 and 2306 students - are members of the millennial generation. These are people born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s. They comprise one of the many political generations which have helped define politics in the United States since day one and even before. There are argument - good ones - that generational replacement is one of the principle factors driving changes in public policy. It's tough to understand the rapid change in policies regarding Gay marriage, and sexual orientation in general, without it.

With apologies to the Generation Xers and Baby Boomers in the class, I'll regularly post items related to this generation over the semester. It might help the millennials understand themselves better - and the rest of us can try to figure them out too.

Here are some items that might be worth your time to get comfortable with the concept and the uniqueness of the millennials.

- Quiz: How Millennial Are You?
- Wikipedia: Millennials.
- The Civic and Political Participation of Millennials.
- Harvard Institute of Politics: What Are Millennials Thinking?
- Pew Research Center: Millennials surpass Gen Xers as the largest generation in U.S. labor force.

And some informative charts - to help your ability to communicate visually.

The Beloit College The Mindset List for the Class of 2015

Beloit College does this very year. There is no better way to feel old.

If you are a traditional, straight from high school student you were born in 1997 and shaped by certain events, but not others. This is not just a neat bit of trivia. it's also a look at what shaped a person's world view. One of the more difficult things to come to terms with is which references work and which don't when using examples in the classroom. For many of you things like Watergate and the fall of the Berlin Wall are ancient history and have little relevance to how you think of the world. But the things that matter to you, probably don't matter to folks my age.

Very late in the semester we'll discuss the concept of a political generation. The fact that people in different age groups sometimes tend to think alike, not because they all know each other, but because they all grew up exposed to the same events. I grew up in the 70s for example - keep that in mind when you hear me go off on this and that.

There are 75 items on the list, here are the ones that I think are most interesting to ponder.

1 - There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway.

2 - States and Velcro parents have always been requiring that they wear their bike helmets.

3 - The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.

4 - There have nearly always been at least two women on the Supreme Court, and women have always commanded U.S. Navy ships.

5 - They “swipe” cards, not merchandise.

6 - As they’ve grown up on websites and cell phones, adult experts have constantly fretted about their alleged deficits of empathy and concentration.

7 - American tax forms have always been available in Spanish.

8 - More Americans have always traveled to Latin America than to Europe.

9 - Amazon has never been just a river in South America.

10 - Refer to LBJ, and they might assume you're talking about LeBron James.

11 - Women have never been too old to have children.

12 - They’ve always gone to school with Mohammed and Jesus.

13 - The Communist Party has never been the official political party in Russia.

14 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show has always been available on TV.

15 - Jimmy Carter has always been a smiling elderly man who shows up on TV to promote fair elections and disaster relief.

16 - Women have always been kissing women on television.

17 - Music has always been available via free downloads.

18 - Sears has never sold anything out of a Big Book that could also serve as a doorstop.

19 - Electric cars have always been humming in relative silence on the road.

20 - No state has ever failed to observe Martin Luther King Day.

21 - Refugees and prisoners have always been housed by the U.S. government at Guantanamo.

A statistical picure of 27 year olds

The Atlantic digs into a report by the Department of Education that has tracked a number of high school sophomores beginning in 2002 and asked how their lives were going in 2012.

- Click here for the study: Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002): A First Look at 2002 High School Sophomores 10 Years Later. 

- And here for the Article.

Some fancy graphs with relevant detail:

Is Obama and the Democrats losing the Millennials?

From the Daily Beast:

If Obamacare never gets fixed, it might just sour the single best relationship the Democratic Party has: its love affair with the young.

To understand why, it’s important to understand the basic paradox of millennial politics. Millennials are the product of what Chris Hayes has called “the fail decade.” Because they came of age watching a Republican president fail massively in Iraq,Hurricane Katrina, and the financial crisis, millennials are predisposed to favor Democrats. Because they’ve entered adulthood in miserable economic times, they’re more likely than their elders to feel that capitalism itself has failed, which predisposes them to favor government intervention in the economy. A November 2011 Pew studyfound that young Americans were more than 20 points more likely than the middle-aged, and a whopping 30 points more likely than the elderly, to favor a bigger, more expensive government over a cheaper, smaller one.

But the same failures that have made young Americans eager for government help also have left them dubious that government can provide it. When a 2009 Center for American Progress study compared millennials to previous generations of young people, it found them significantly less likely to trust government to “do what is right most of the time.” A 2009 National Bureau of Economic Research paper suggests that this paradox is typical of people who enter adulthood during rough economic times. “Recession-stricken individuals on the one hand ask for larger involvement by the state in redistribution,” observed authors Paola Giuliano and Antonio Spilimbergo, “but at the same time are more skeptical of the state institutions’ ability to intervene effectively.”

During Obama’s first term, this contradiction only grew. According to pollsters, young Americans were far more supportive of Obamacare than their elders. But between 2010 and 2013, their faith in government continued to fall.

Until a month ago, it seemed possible that when health-care reform took effect, and young Americans began to feel its positive results, the gap might close. Now it seems likely to widen further. I doubt that means young people will shift toward the GOP in significant numbers anytime soon. Among millennials, the Republican Party’s brand remains horrendous, and almost everything the party has done since Mitt Romney’s loss has made it worse. More fundamentally, few millennials embrace the right’s basic contention that a larger welfare state threatens their freedom and that an unregulated free market will solve their economic woes.

Instead of re-aligning young people, the Obamacare debacle is more likely to de-align them.

If I'm following the argument correctly, the author is implying that young voters will be increasingly likely to tune out of politics, dealign from either of the two parties, which renders them even less powerful than they already are.

You probably already know this but . . .

. . . its tough being young and broke: 

Poverty is an astonishingly common experience here in the world's richest country. As I wrote this morning, almost 40 percent of American adults experience it for at least a year by age 60.

But you know who poverty is especially common among? Young adults.

Houston tries to make itself attractive to the Millenials

This Houston Chronicle story is behind a pay-wall, but it fits our general discussion of cities as networks of economic interests. It also tells us something about how the more vibrant cities do what they can to continually re-position themselves so that they remain vibrant.

Often this means ensuring that the city is appealing to the young since they are the engines that drive future growth.

The story - Mid Main project will ride with the millennials - details a development in the midtown area, on the light rail line between downtown and the Museum District, which is geared to wards the 18-32 year old demographic. Developers hope it will be the first of money other such projects, and it comes after other efforts to make the area hip.

Much of this effort requires partnerships between the public and private sector in order to make it happen. I'll post a few separate items about the institutions and rules that try to make that a reality. Remember that Houston still suffers from a general sense that it is looked down upon nationally, so it has to try hard to overcome that reputation.

From the Pew Research Center: How Millennial Are You?

If you are in my class, you are likely to be a millennial - that is if you are between 33 and 10.

Here's a quiz that sees where you stand on issues and whether you think like a millennial.

The Millennial Generation Speaks

Andrew Sullivan compiles a handful of comments form millennial voters about the recent election, and life in general. These are the people born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.

- Click Here.

This is a great portrait of an emerging factor in American politics. Some other links:

- Wikipedia: Generation Y.
- Pew Research Center: Millennial.
- About Mentoring Millennial.

Are Millenials less religious than older generations?

Apparently so. Less than 70% say they've never doubted the existence of God. Older generations are less likely to have a similar doubt - the figure gets higher the older generation. Is this a trend? If so, what impact will this have on politics in upcoming decades?

About Those Millenials

Heres' some info about the 18 - 29 year old set.

My 2301's might find this useful when we discuss public opinion.

Meet the Millenials

Why are the young so fresh? So different?