GOP Report on Losing Younger Voters

Sahil Kapur reports on a GOP report on why the party does so poorly with young voters on Talking Points Memo.

The Republican Party’s troubles with young voters are well known. But a new internal report virtually elevates the threat level to apocalyptic, declaring that the GOP needs a “fundamental re-thinking” of its approach in order to remain viable with the younger generation. The 95-page report by the College National Republican Committee, based on in-depth research by the Winston Group on voters aged 18-29 nationwide, warns of “a dismal present situation” for the GOP when it comes to Millennial voters.

Uncommitted young voters may not be enamored with the Democratic Party but they have a terrible opinion of the GOP. “In the focus group research conducted in January 2013,” the report said, “the young ‘winnable’ Obama voters were asked to say what words came to mind when they heard ‘Republican Party.’ The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”

UPDATE: Jon Favreau comments on The Daily Beast.

With the help of the Republican Party’s leading Millennial pollster, Kristen Soltis Anderson, the College Republicans set out to discover how to win back some of these Americans in future elections. And what they found is younger voters simply don’t want the current brand of crazy that so much of the national Republican Party has been selling with such fervor.

The truth is, the Republican Party today doesn’t have an economic agenda that goes beyond tax cuts and spending cuts. It can spend the next few years hiding behind investigative witch hunts and over-the-top rhetoric that most Americans don’t take seriously. It can hide behind another 37 failed repeal votes of a health-care program that’s already working as it’s supposed to in states like California. But the party cannot keep hiding from an entire generation of voters who expect both sides to address their aspirations with smart, sensible, mainstream solutions.