New research out of the U.K. shows that the 9/11 terrorist attacks created a political shift in favor of the Republican Party among young voters who registered in the aftermath of the devastation that has persisted. Researchers note that this highlights the need for political parties to win the allegiances of voters at a young age.
The study out of the University of Warwick’s Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy looked at how events can trigger the decision of a voter to register for any given party, by watching the political affiliation choices of first-time voters in California who registered when they first became eligible.
The study found that voters with birthdays in September 2001 were more likely to register as Republicans than voters born in August 2001 by about 2 percentage points, and that the 2 percent difference continued into the 2008 election cycle.
“Our research shows that party strategists should focus on winning over voters when they are young,” said lead researcher Sharun Mukand from the University of Warwick. “However our findings have important implications for the political arena and for public policies. Policies may persist simply because support for a party endures. In particular, if voters are unwilling to shift political allegiance in response to new, politically relevant information, then policies out of tune with changing times may live on.”
According to the researchers, this is not the only time in the last ten years an event created a visible political shift among young voters. The most recent such event was the election of Barack Obama.
“Consider the implications of our findings when applied to the 2008 U.S. election. In this election, according to Pew Research Center, two third of voters ages 18-29 voted for Obama in 2008. This compares to 53 percent of the general population. Our analysis suggests that this gap between the Obama ‘youth voters’ and the general population is remarkably persistent over several election cycles. Indeed, our calculations suggest that the 2008 youth vote gap will be a phenomenon affecting US elections for decades to come,” said Stockholm University’s Ethan Kaplan, one of the studies researchers.