While much has rightly been made over the urban/rural and education splits in the presidential election, age has not been discussed as much. That may be because while the results are somewhat surprising, they don’t fit into any of our preconceived notions about how the 2016 election went. The popular imagining of our political divide is a young, diverse group of 20- and 30-somethings on one side and a bunch of angry white grandparents on the other side. But the exit polls don’t quite match up with this. So while you’re home for Thanksgiving, don’t blame your grandparents’ generation for Trump winning; blame your parents’ generation.
The age group that moved the most toward Clinton compared to the 2012 election results were actually seniors, age 65 and up:
Presidential Election Results by Age Group
|
2016 |
2012 |
2008 |
Overall |
D+1 |
D+4 |
D+7 |
18-29 |
D+18 |
D+23 |
D+34 |
30-44 |
D+8 |
D+7 |
D+6 |
45-64 |
R+9 |
R+4 |
D+1 |
65+ |
R+8 |
R+12 |
R+8 |
As you can see, two age groups have trended toward Republicans since 2008 and two have held steady. The 34 point margin that young people gave Obama in 2008 was likely never sustainable, but Clinton suffered further drops from Obama’s 2012 margin, all of which was due to increased third party voting (Trump and Romney both got 37 percent of the 18-29 vote, but third parties received 8 percent this year, up from 3 percent in 2012).
Those 30-44 have trended toward the Democrats even as the overall electorate voted more Republican. This is likely due to a millennial infusion as many of those 18-29 year olds who voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008 are now in their 30s.
Looking at the next age group up is where Democrats find their real problem. Obama barely won the 45-64 age range in 2008 and since then Democrats have nosedived with this group. Republican gains here outpaced the overall movement of the electorate, and this group is now the most Republican by any age group.
They took that title from seniors 65 and up, who were not a fan of Barack Obama. Seniors were the group that voted in the biggest numbers for McCain and Romney, which was the culmination of a 20 year shift for seniors who had voted more Republican in each succeeding presidential election since 1992, culminating in Obama’s 12 point loss among them.
But Clinton reversed this longstanding trend, even as the overall electorate shifted right. The reasons for this is not immediately clear, but as we touched on with millennials moving into the 30-44 age group, no one stays in the same age range permanently. As opposed to race, gender, etc., when looking at age groups, the flow of various generations into and out of these sub-groups has to be taken into account. Baby boomers are now straddling between the two oldest age groups, and have tended to be more democratic than their Silent generation elders who had dominated the senior population over the past decade.
One last note on the makeup of the electorate in these elections. Turnout is obviously a big factor whenever breaking the election down into subgroups. The youngest and oldest age groups have stayed relatively stable (18-19 percent for 18-29 and 15-16 percent for 65+) but there has been a shift among the other two groups. The 30-44 age group has fallen from 29 percent of the electorate in 2008 to 25 percent in 2016, while the 45-64 age group has risen from 37 percent to 40 percent. So as that group has become more Republican, it’s also become a bigger share of the electorate.