Key Points
But it also matters where they begin on the political spectrum, and there are indications that millennials and the oldest members of Generation Z started out more liberal than prior generations..
Yet its effects have been muted by the size and liberal bent of millennials now approaching middle age, and the more solidly blue partisanship of Gen Z voters just entering the electorate..
This theory, which political scientists call the impressionable years hypothesis, helps explain why the electorate has remained closelysplit even though the aging of the population has exerted rightward pressure on the voting pool..
Data from the General Social Survey, conducted since the 1970s by NORC at the University of Chicago, shows how each generation has a different partisan origin story..
Changes in opinions, attitudes, and behaviors observed in 2021 relative to historical trends may be due to actual changes in the concept over time and/or may have resulted from methodological changes made to the survey methodology during the COVID-19 global pandemic..
