Millennials — those “Gen Y” Americans born in the late 1980s and early ’90s — will be a key swing demographic in the election of 2012, according to the president of the non-profit organization Generation Opportunity.
Americans who grew up with 9/11 and two foreign wars, and came to age amid the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression, now face 18-percent unemployment, Paul Conway told a group of reporters Thursday morning. And many of those whose see dwindling opportunities for career success will soon cast their first votes for president.
By 2020, Millennials will comprise 38 percent of the voter base.
In 2012, he said, “people will look beyond the party label and see who has solutions. Sixty-nine percent of people age 18–29 don’t think that Washington represents their views. There is a huge disconnect.”
Conway adds that politicians and the public know precious little about this voting bloc. “I reject the common stereotypes associated with this generation … I think it’s a load of crap. This is a generation of public service, military service and selfless service, and there are no jobs for them.”
The Occupy Wall Street movement provides a clear example. As media outlets attribute the protests to angry unemployed youth, Democratic pollster Doug Schoen told The Wall Street Journal in October that the protesters “have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies.”
Schoen and his team polled protesters in Zuccotti park, concluding that the movement “comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence.”
Despite this loud minority, though, most young voters believe lowering business taxes creates jobs, and that businesses are able to grow with less government interference, Conway insisted.
President Obama’s 2008 electoral victory was attributed in part to his support from first-time voters, 68 of whom sided with him over Republican Senator John McCain. But his public expressions of sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street movement, and his disdain for public spending cuts, could alienate a large number of young voters this time around.
“Bills are being authorized without permission from the ones signing the check, which are the Millennials,” Conway explained.
