A generational shift: how partisan alignment and the rise of social issues have produced a generation of Democrats

American political elites are today more neatly divided on a wider range of issues than at any other point in the postwar era. How have these trends affected the political socialization of American youth? We argue that two distinctive aspects of US polarization, namely ideological alignment and the emergence of non-economic issues, have formed the foundation of a generational shift in favor of the Democratic party. We find that Millennials and Gen Z display levels of ideological alignment across economic, civil rights, and moral domains that are equal to or greater than previous generations. Their liberal positions on moral and civil rights issues are not only strongly predictive of vote choice, but also tend to offset any conservative positions on economic issues – in contrast to the way previous generations resolved such ideological tensions. As such, the push for a non-economic political agenda – a popular strategy in the last few decades, especially among Republicans – might well benefit the Democrats electorally as older generations are replaced.