The Party Goes On: U.S. Young Adults’ Partisanship and Political Engagement Across Age and Historical Time

• Published date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X19849692
• Date: 01 November 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X19849692

American Politics Research

2019, Vol. 47(6) 1358 –1375

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X19849692

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Article

The Party Goes On:

U.S. Young Adults’

Partisanship and Political

Engagement Across Age

and Historical Time

Laura Wray-Lake1, Erin H. Arruda1,

and David A. Hopkins2

Abstract

This article examines effects of political party affiliation on U.S. young adults’

political participation across age and historical time. Using national U.S.

longitudinal Monitoring the Future data from youth aged 18 to 30 years, we

estimate effects of partisanship (Democrat, Republican, Other) on change in

youth’s electoral and political voice participation with age, and test whether

effects differ between 1976 and 2003. Political engagement and partisanship

declined for young adults over several decades. Partisanship had a consistent

positive effect on electoral participation across age and cohort. Democratic

youth were higher on nonelectoral participation for some cohorts,

and Democrats and Republican youth showed growth in nonelectoral

participation at different historical moments. Although younger cohorts of

Americans are less politically engaged based on available measures, political

parties still remain a powerful force for political participation among those

who choose to affiliate. Youth’s partisan attachments and political behavior

are best understood in historical context.

1University of California, Los Angeles, USA

2Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Laura Wray-Lake, Associate Professor of Social Welfare, Luskin School of Public Affairs,

University of California, Los Angeles, 3250 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA 90095,

USA.

Email: wraylake@ucla.edu

849692APRXXX10.1177/1532673X19849692American Politics ResearchWray-Lake et al.

research-article2019

Wray-Lake et al. 1359

Keywords

voting, activism, youth, age effects, political party

For decades, scholars have recognized that adults who consider themselves

Democrats or Republicans consistently participate in electoral politics at

higher rates than self-identified Independents (Bartels, 2000; Campbell,

Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960). Partisans are more likely than Independents

to develop strong positions on issues and candidates (Bafumi & Shapiro,

2009), and collectively outrank them on political knowledge and interest—

attributes that motivate voting (Campbell et al., 1960). Party and candidate

organizations play a powerful recruitment role in encouraging members to

turn out in elections, whereas Independents remain relatively unmobilized

(Holbrook & McClurg, 2005). Political parties also connect people with simi-

lar interests and ideologies and help individuals develop their political iden-

tity (Levendusky, 2009).

Despite many studies supporting the association of partisanship with

citizens’ political activity, prior research on partisanship has largely

focused on adults and relied on cross-sectional models (see Miller &

Saunders, 2016), leaving unknown how partisanship predicts change over

time in youth’s political behavior. Extant literature has emphasized the

influence of individuals’ partisan affiliation on electoral behavior, with

less attention to nonelectoral expressions of political voice (e.g., protest-

ing, demonstrating; Schussman & Soule, 2005). As we will argue, belong-

ing to a major political party and affiliating with a specific political party

exert distinct effects on youth’s electoral and nonelectoral political behav-

ior. Prominent studies of partisanship and political behavior date from a

previous era of American politics. Given contemporary historical fluctua-

tions in partisan attachments and political actions (Wattenberg, 2009,

2015), it is appropriate to revisit these subjects with more recent data and

consider the role of historical context in shaping links between partisan-

ship and political behavior.

Youth aged 18 to 30 years represented about 23% of the U.S. voting eli-

gible population in 2016 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017). Youth are becoming

more detached from political parties, political parties expend little effort to

recruit youth in democratic countries, and youth’s electoral participation has

declined over the last few decades (Mycock & Tonge, 2011; Wattenberg,

2009, 2015). Yet, younger voters were key to electing Obama in 2008 and

2012, and estimates suggest powerful impacts of youth voter turnout in future

elections, particularly in swing states (Kawashima-Ginsberg, Hayat, Kiesa,

& Sullivan, 2016). In an era when national elections are often decided by