Young Republicans are becoming more like the Republican Party rather than the Republican Party becoming more like young people. A new survey of 40,000 Americans finds that, while support for LGBTQ rights has increased or at least stayed steady among most groups since 2015, support from young Republicans dropped.
The good news is that a majority of Republicans under 30 continue to support anti-discrimination laws. The bad news is that that majority dropped from 74 percent in 2015 to 63 percent in 2018. The head of the Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted the survey, speculates that pro-equality people may be less likely to identify as Republicans now, as “The Republican Party is becoming more ideologically pure.”
By contrast, support for LGBTQ rights stayed steady among Jews, at 80 percent; Hindus, at 79 percent; and Mormons, at 70 percent. Support was slightly lower among Muslims (60 percent) and white evangelical Protestants (54 percent) than among young Republicans, but it didn’t show the kind of sharp drop that young Republicans did. Asian-Pacific Islander Americans were the racial or ethnic group most likely to embrace equality, at 75 percent for marriage equality and 73 percent for non-discrimination protections in areas such as jobs and housing. But, impressively, support for the latter was just four points lower among all Americans—which means that, once again, America’s laws lag behind the views of its people.
Young Republicans aren’t going to drag us back into the dark ages on this one, but their backward movement in just three years is a scary sign of where their party is headed.