Pew Research:
This isn't self-IDd ideology. Pew "used a scale based on
10 political values questions about the role of government, the environment, homosexuality and other issues to measure ideological consistency." The results are clear: on the issues, liberalism is ascendant.
The obvious bottom line: the GOP is totally screwed if it doesn't learn how to court young voters. Yet here is the CPAC session today on reaching out to young voters:
Yeah, good luck with that, particularly when your message is one of bigotry, higher student loan fees, and outright hostility to sex.
But there's more! You can see the GOP's death spiral in action, as each successive generation is less Republican, and more Democratic, than the previous one. That's demographic destiny, and while it doesn't guarantee progressive governance in the future, it means our job is much easier than theirs.
This chart also shows the death of the conservative Democrat, down to three percent of millennials. And what is that, a resurgence of the liberal Republican? A surprising 17 percent of Republican millennials are "mostly liberal." Given the large sample size (over 10,000 respondents), this isn't a statistical aberration. There really are a bunch of young Republicans who are more liberal than they realize because they don't hate on gays, African Americans, immigrants, the poor, or the environment.
Finally, look at how much more ideologically cohesive millennial Democrats are: 59 percent of young Democrats are liberal, while just 31 percent of young Republicans are conservative. The GOP is changing, whether they like it or not.