President Donald Trump may have achieved a great deal in his first year, but the youngest Republicans want another option in 2020, according to a new poll.
A whopping 82 percent of voters who lean Republicans between the ages of 18 and 24 said they “want another Republican to challenge President Trump for the party’s nomination in 2020,” according to an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll released this past weekend.
Most Republican-leaning voters (56 percent) said they did not want to see a challenge to Trump in two years, but most GOP backers under 44 disagreed. Majorities of Republican-leaning voters between the ages of 25 and 34 (57 percent) and those between the ages of 35 and 44 (58 percent) favored a primary challenge against the president.
Older Right-leaning voters proved less likely to support an open primary in 2020. Those between the ages of 45 and 54 mostly opposed the idea (63 percent against), while those between 55 and 64 even more firmly rejected it (66 percent against). Republican-leaning voters over 65 proved least likely to back a primary challenge against Trump (24 percent) and most likely to oppose the idea (74 percent).
These numbers suggest that the Republican age gap that emerged during the 2016 election is alive and well into President Trump’s term. Even among self-described evangelicals, who overwhelmingly chose Trump, younger Americans proved more likely to distance themselves or hold their nose while voting.
It is easy to overstate the importance of this poll, however. The numbers do not suggest that most young Republicans want Trump to lose a Republican primary in 2020 — they just want to see other options.
The poll does suggest that support for Trump, even on the Right, skews elderly. As millennials make up an increasingly larger part of the electorate, the GOP will likely shift long-term away from candidates like Trump. Whether that means less bombastic candidates or candidates with different policies remains to be seen.
Then again, Trump could experience a resurgence in millennial support — stranger things have happened.
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