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Explores the reasons why young people are less likely to follow politics and vote in the United States and other established democracies, no matter who the candidates are, or what the issues may be. An important read for students of democracy, political participation, elections, and voter behaviour.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. A Worldwide Turnout Problem -- 2. Turnout in the American States -- 3. Types of Individuals Who Vote -- 4. The New Generation Gap -- 5. Who Votes Does Make a Difference -- 6. How Voting Is Like Taking an SAT Test -- 7. Are Negative Ads to Blame? -- 8. How to Improve U.S. Turnout Rates: Lessons from Abroad -- Notes -- Index

"In 2016, Hillary Clinton managed to win the Democratic nomination despite losing young voters to Bernie Sanders by a margin of 73 to 26 percent. The fact that senior citizens were four times more likely to vote in the primaries than young people enabled her to survive her lack of youth appeal. But in the general election, Clinton's problems with young people turned into her Achilles heel. Young people failed to come out to vote as much as she needed, or to support her in sufficient numbers when they did vote. What will happen in 2020, another history-making election? Already in late-2019, journalists are referring to the generation gap as "the most important divide among Democratic voters." Is Voting for Young People? explores the reasons why young people are less likely to follow politics and vote in the United States (as well as in many other established democracies) no matter who the candidates are, or what the issues may be. This brief, accessible, and provocative book suggests ways of changing that. For the first time since its original publication in 2006, each chapter has been thoroughly updated to reflect the most recent available data. New to the Fifth Edition For the first time since its original 2006 publication, the entire text has been updated with the most recent available data and analysis. A new chapter has been added--Young People and Politics in the Trump Era. New chapter opening vignettes illustrate one of the key points in each chapter"--

As the confusion over the ballots in Florida in 2000 demonstrated, American elections are complex and anything but user-friendly. This phenomenon is by no means new, but with the weakening of political parties in recent decades and the rise of candidate-centered politics, the high level of complexity has become ever more difficult for many citizens to navigate. Thus the combination of complex elections and the steady decline of the party system has led to a decline in voter turnout. In this timely book, Martin Wattenberg confronts the question of what low participation rates mean for democracy. At the individual level, turnout decline has been highest among the types of people who most need to have electoral decisions simplified for them through a strong party system--those with the least education, political knowledge, and life experience. As Wattenberg shows, rather than lamenting how many Americans fail to exercise their democratic rights, we should be impressed with how many arrive at the polls in spite of a political system that asks more of a typical person than is reasonable. Meanwhile, we must find ways to make the American electoral process more user-friendly.

In today's world of intense ideological conflict at the elite level, the nature of mass belief systems has changed dramatically since the last time Converse's famous levels of conceptualization (Campbell et al., 1960; Converse, 1964) were coded in 2000. This paper shows that the percentage with well-developed belief systems based on a clear understanding of public policy choices has increased substantially since then. It also introduces a new category termed "policy wonks" to reflect a sub-category that Converse only referred to in passing but which is now quite common. Unlike respondents whom I classify as "concept ideologues" in this paper, policy wonks do not employ overarching concepts such as liberalism/conservatism or the scope of government. Rather, policy wonks just refer to at least three public policy stands when asked what they like and dislike about the major parties and presidential candidates. Although it was very rare for citizens in the 1950s to show a clear belief system based on the specific choices of government action, today's highly intense and polarized policy debates have made programmatic-oriented belief systems quite common. A close examination of policy wonks shows that they are just as politically knowledgeable and consistent on issue dimensions as concept ideologues (i.e., those who employ ideological terms). Hence, policy wonks possess a well-defined belief system based on employing an understanding of public policy, thereby befitting Converse's criteria for classification at the top level of conceptualization. The substantial increases in both concept ideologues and policy wonks accounts for virtually all of the increase since the 1980s in respondents whose partisanship matches their ideology (i.e., conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats). Not only are respondents at the top of levels of conceptualization more numerous than they used to be, but being more consistent than they used to be has led to a marked increase in the overall correspondence between partisanship and ideology. On the other hand, the decrease in ideologically inconsistent partisans (i.e., liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats) has occurred across all conceptualization levels. Thus, party polarization is a combination of: 1) better-developed belief systems increasing ideological-partisan consistency; and 2) partisan sorting decreasing partisans who are out step with their party's ideological stance.Past research has shown that Republicans are substantially more likely to be ideologues whereas Democrats are much more inclined to conceptualize politics in terms of group benefits. This pattern was quite evident in the 2008 and 2012 American National Election Study (ANES) responses that I personally coded. However, two developments occurred in 2016 that dramatically reshaped the partisan nature of belief systems. First, the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party evidenced a great deal of ideological thinking, thereby pushing Democrats to a record percentage at the top level of ideological conceptualization. Second, the voters who supported Trump in the Republican primaries were much less likely to be ideologues or policy wonks than those who supported more traditional Republican candidates. These developments combined to make Democrats and Republicans more similar than ever before in terms of ideological conceptualization in 2016.

Young Americans cost Hillary Clinton the presidency. Voters under the age of 30 liked Barack Obama very much in 2016, just as young people did in 2008 and 2012, but a surprising number balked at voting for Hillary Clinton to continue the Obama legacy. For such a pro‐Democratic group, the ratings that young voters gave Clinton were astoundingly low in 2016, spurred in large part by the very poor image they had of her personal character. Also surprising is that young people were not particularly put off by the extreme stands that Donald Trump took on many issues.

This article examines sixty years of data from the American National Election Studies, and finds that the electorate's focus on candidate attributes has declined substantially. Whereas 80% of respondents had mentioned personal attributes in the past, in recent elections only about 60% have done so. Furthermore, such comments are now more tied to partisan identification and have less of an independent impact on voting behavior. The chances of presidential image makers successfully making a difference by emphasizing a president's personal character are now much less than in the era of Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan.

This research note presents data demonstrating that George W. Bush enjoyed a substantial advantage over John Kerry in terms of how voters perceived their personal qualities. This advantage was particularly evident on reliability, integrity, and strength of leadership. Multivariate analysis of voting choices supports the conclusion that these factors provided the crucial margin of victory for Bush's reelection in 2004.