<http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2008/06/rising-wave-among- young-people/?section=Analysis>
The Crash of the Republican Brand
The Republican brand was so diminished among young people it was not clear it could crash further. But it did. On every metric, from the support for the President, to the favorability of the party, to the generic support for a Republican candidate for President, Republicans have suffered serious erosion among young people in the last two months.
Fully half (50 percent) of young people now describe their feelings toward the Republican party in negative terms, up six points from April.[3] George Bush suffers an even more violent crash (now 68 percent negative, up from 59 percent).
Even ideologically, young people move to a more progressive disposition as self-ascribed liberal numbers reach 32 percent (up from 27 percent) and self-ascribed conservative numbers fall to 22 percent (down from 29 percent in April).
As previously reported, in focus groups young people’s alienation from the Republicans does not rest entirely on frustration with Republican governance. To be sure the war and, particularly, the economy are the starting point for their criticism, but it is also deeper than that. It relates to a core disagreement over Republican/ conservative values, world-view and role of government. Young people support a more activist government, but also a government that gives its citizens the freedom to make personal choices. In this survey, however, another theme to emerge is the sense among young people that they will spend the rest of their lives paying for the mistakes of the current generation of Republicans.