Daniela Berson
WMAL.com
RICHMOND — (WMAL) A new poll from Christopher Newport University suggests that young adults in Virginia are moving away from party politics.
CNU polled 2,004 Virginians between ages 18 and 36 and found that 40% did not identify as Democrat or Republican.
Meanwhile, 37% identified as Democrats and 24% identified as Republicans.
Quentin Kidd, Director of CNU’s Wason Center for Public Policy said that this lack of affiliation stems from millennials who prefer to solve problems through community engagement over political rhetoric.
“All they’ve ever seen out of the political institutions like the political parties is discord,” Kidd told WMAL.
A majority of millennials polled said that they didn’t want institutions, political or religious, to interfere with their social lives.
Despite the decreased interest in political parties, 7 out of 10 millennials are registered to vote, and they are expected to have a huge impact in this year’s presidential election.
But Kidd said that parties may go by the wayside if they can’t find a way to appeal to young voters.
“There’s a burden on the political parties to try to find a way to be attractive to people across the age spectrum,” Kidd said. “The burden is on parties to find a way to say to millennials ‘we can be a mechanism by which problems can be solved.'”
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