Generations’ political party identification shifts over time.

Abstract

A common belief dictates that as individuals age, they become more conservative, which in America, implicates an increased lean toward the Republican party. In order to determine the accuracy of this conjecture for broad generations, this study sought to determine the degree to which, if at all, generations’ political party identifications become more Republican-leaning over time. For this, 65 years of American National Election Studies (ANES) data was used to map out the past progression of each generation’s party identification over time. Drawing from tendencies exhibited by the Silent and Baby Boomer Generations, the results indicated that generations become around 0.01 points on the 7-point ANES party identification scale more Republican each year. These findings also provided understanding into the nature of how generations politically shift, suggesting that individuals who are affiliated with one party will increasingly support that party, while those who are originally Independent-leaning tend to shift toward the Republican party over time.

Keywords

• politics
• political parties
• generations
• party identification
• republican
• democrat