Emily Ekins on Millennials: The Politically Unclaimed Generation

A new Reason-Rupe survey and report of millennials, Americans ages 18-29, find this cohort may be more difficult to politically pigeonhole than previously thought. Reason Foundation's director of polling, Emily Ekins, analyzes the data and highlights interesting facts. For example, despite record-breaking Democratic presidential voting among 18- to 29-year-olds in the past few elections, millennials are no more Democratic (43 percent) than Americans over 30 (49 percent). Instead, they are three times as likely to say they are independent (34 percent) and half as likely to be Republican (23 percent). Their attitudes on many issues, from same-sex marriage and the federal deficit to marijuana legalization and soda bans, signal the potential for them to become the most socially tolerant, fiscally responsible generation in the nation's history.