ORGANIZING A PARTY AROUND HATING EVERYONE...:

For the Democrats, party identification peaked in Obama's first term and then dropped in his second term. For Republicans, party identification took a sharp drop at the end of George W. Bush's second term and never really recovered. The trend seems to have taken another drop after Trump's election.

How can we explain what looks to be a long-term decline for the Republican brand? Age, for one thing. From the beginning of the Trump administration the oldest Americans, those aged 50 and over, have consistently given Trump his highest approval ratings while young people aged 18-29 have consistently given him his lowest approval ratings. The chart below by David A. Hopkins of Boston College illustrates this reality. The generation gap keeps showing up in American elections. In the two big governors' races in 2017, Virginia and New Jersey, younger voters chose Democrats by large margins and older voters went for the Republicans. In 2016, Primaries Project exit polling showed that 15.2 percent of Democratic voters participating in competitive primaries were aged 18-29, compared to just 8.3 percent of Republican voters.

A political party that can't attract young people, especially in a generation that is as big as the Millennial generation--America's largest demographic group--is not a party with a very bright future. So although Trump, while focusing on the base, has made the Republican Party his, come November it may not be as much of an advantage.

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