AND YOUNG VOTERS ARE NOWHERE TO BE FOUND …
|| By FITSNEWS || We recently posted an item revealing the extent to which younger “Republican” voters were departing from their elders on the hot button social issues of gay marriage and marijuana legalization.
In our post, we commented on how these trends exposed “the Quixotic nature of the presidential campaigns being mounted by evangelical candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum – fiscal liberals whose candidacies are based almost exclusively on overt appeals to the religious right.”
Well that may be true nationally, but Huckabee (who finished second in the 2008 S.C. GOP presidential primary) and Santorum (who finished third in 2012) still have a receptive audience in early-voting South Carolina.
And it’s not just because of the prevalence of Bible thumpers, either … at least not exclusively.
According to data from the S.C. Election Commission, a whopping 202,935 voters in the 2012 “Republican” presidential primary were 65 years or older. That’s out of 603,770 total ballots cast – or 33.6 percent of the total GOP electorate.
While you ponder that stat, also ponder this one: Another 246,810 GOP primary voters in the 2012 presidential election – or 40.8 percent of the electorate that year – were 45 years or older.
Add those two groups up and you’re looking at nearly four-fifths of the Palmetto State’s “Republican’ primary electorate …
Conversely, only 7,022 GOP presidential voters during the last election were between the ages of 18-24 (1.2 percent of those casting ballots). And only 125,780 (20.8 percent) were between the ages of 25-44.
Election Commission sources tell FITS the data isn’t an aberration, either.
“It’s consistent with percentage voting in both primaries in 2008,” one source told us.
In other words … the GOP is dying.
37 comments
“If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”
Wasn’t that from Winston Churchill ? Very true .
You left out the courage part, not to mention the pothole brick road.
“If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”
Where does GrandTango fit in this metric?
*Asks innocently*
Grand Tango is likely a three-headed hermaphrodite, with a mother who was a French nun and a dad who was a deformed hunchback who cleans floors in a nuclear silo and was contaminated at the time Grand was conceived. Grand Tango was in special ed all his life and is on the sex offender registry for raping dogs.
Ding, ding, ding – we have a winner for today folks.
Bring back fond(ling) memories…raping dogs?
ahhh grandassshat pretending to be an ugly girl named Emily likes to sign in under how many different names daily? WTF guess you still have no job huh?
Nailed it.
The GrandTango , on his 12th birthday, asked his mother, “Mother, I have grown up without a father, and you promised me that on this day you would tell me who my real father is.”
His mother says, “Yes, my son, it happened this way. In a certain state where I was living, there is a certain town. In that certain town was a certain saloon. Inside the saloon
I met a certain man.”
Excitedly, GrandTango says, “Oh yes, yes! And he is my father?”
His mother replies, “Actually, I’m not certain!”
The GOP, nation-wide, is the old white people’s party. They’re on the wrong side of the demographic trends. That explains why they’ve become so narrow-minded, mean-spirited and absolutist — they’re suffering their death throes.
It is truly sad that the democrat party stands so strongly against democracy. Apparently the old folks actually believe voting still counts while the young people would rather sue, and can not accept the consequences for their Statist mentality.
One of these years you may gain some wisdom,
If only the old folks realized what the GOP wants to do to the programs rely on for survival.
The old folks realize what the Democratic Party will do to the economy and, not to be hyperbolic, civilization if left unchecked. Unfortunately they don’t realize that most GOPers are cut from the same cloth.
All that the old folks realize is what the Fox News airheads tell them to be afraid of. Those airheads know to tip toe around the retirement home crowd when they talk about killing programs the AARP would revolt against them over killing.
Hmmm … Makes me wonder if all this pandering to youth is propaganda intended to offer a reason for political fence jumping. It really is sad that both major party’s want the same big government telling the public what is best for them, and neither party believes the public can think for itself. Seems the elderly might have a thought left in their feeble mind, that of self governance and self responsibility.
What the fuck with all this crap about old timers
You, little snot, have used the phrase in at least two posts today as if we are the STD of the week
Is this going to be the future of fitsnews; unfair – imbalanced – fuck old timers
If it wasn’t for Senior Citizens, odds are you would be sucking Kim Jong’s dick to get the right to publish your blog
We ain’t fucking old and we certainly ain’t doing time – we are Senior Citizens paying a large percentage of the bill to keep this country afloat
Paying the bills with the guberment checks we gets every month. And keep off my grass you little rats.
Get off my lawn..get off my lawn….whippersnappers..
FITS is BEGGING moderates to take the GOP…He wants McCain, Romney Part 3 in 2016….
FITS sees the emergence of CONSERVATIVES…and he KNOWS a Conservative Nominee will KICK his, and the Democrats’ @$$….
A Conserative? Really, really doubtful. Secondly, who’s this “Conserative”?
Conservative, as in most conservatives, right ?
At bottom, there are really only two parties: Taxpayers and Taxsuckers.
And it’s Us against Them.
The older one gets, the more interested one becomes in having something left to retire on … and something left for the grand kids.
Now that student “loans”, food stamps and extended “unemployment” have run their courses, the young are beginning to hear that “incredible sucking sound” of Gruberment.
“Its [still] the economy, stupid.”
when they all die, it’s game over for the GOP. Old people are jaded and have built up years of hatred towards blacks and Hispanics. Young people date minorities, are open with their gayness, and have more to worry about than politics.
Come on TyroneMamaCollards, be more optimistic. Young people have plenty of time to become jaded and racist.
Baby boomers are the equivalent of a locust plague.
Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.
I’ll dance on all your graves after relieving myself on them.
I find your insolence to be a reflection of your inferior intellect, think about, without us boomers you wouldn’t be pissing on anything.
After I’m done pissing and dancing on boomer graves, I’ll go have a nice Brunswick stew, and then return again to leave a visible corny monument on them-a token of my gratitude.
I see you have trouble multitasking MFer, maybe you’ll grow out of it.
Well put!!!!
all I can say is:
Allman Brothers Band
Led Zepplin
Fleetwood Mac
Steelydan
The BEATLES!!!!!
Steppenwolf
Uriah Heap
Jimmy Hendrix
Janis Joplin
25 cent gas
The list goes on………..
Need I say more????
“25 cent gas”
…and Boomers are the reason it’s now $2.10.
Thanks for giving the Boomers credit for reducing it from around $3.50/gallon because of Gen X,Y’s and millennium’s ignorance.
Ever hear of the Yom Kipur War?????
Get back to me when you finish your homework
And DON’T use your fucking iPhone either!!!!!!!
It isn’t just Republican voters who are aging. According to SEC figures, voters in SC primaries are aging, regardless of party. Primary voters in the 18-24 age range were 1.7% in 2002, in 2006 they were 1.6%, in 2010 (a relatively enthusiastic voting year) they were 1.7% and in 2014 they dropped to 1.2% of all persons voting.
In 2002 the 25-44 year age range represented 26% of all voters, in 2006 it was 21%, in 2010 it was 20%, and in 2014 only 16% of those voting fell into this age range. So, in 2014, voting was down 38% since 2002 in this demographic.
A less emphatic decline is also observed in the 45-64 age range, which represented 43% of all those voting in primaries in 2002, 45% of those voting in 2006, 46% of those voting in 2010, and only 40% of those voting in 2014. This is a 7% decline since 2002, but the pattern is erratic.
In 2002 the percentage of those voting who were 65 or more years of age was 29%, in 2006 it was 33%, In 2010 it was 32%, and in 2014 it was 43%. The overall population is aging, but not that fast. There was almost a 50% increase in the percentage of older voters in the last primary.
When we look at the older population again in terms of absolute numbers, it becomes clear that there isn’t just a new enthusiasm for voting among seniors. Much of the increased dominance of the old is simply because fewer younger people are voting. The
increase in absolute numbers in voters over 65 is about 35%, with the remaining percentage attributable to declining voting by younger voters.
Any explanation for declines in voting by young people (and by that I mean anyone not carrying a Medicare card) must account for declines in both major parties.