Gender and Age

The first people eligible to vote in America were white males. This gave this section of the population power, and therefore their ideas dominated society. Many people vote the way they do because of the way they are raised and what they are taught.  During the American Revolution the term for this was Republican Motherhood.  This term was used to describe mothers raising their children on republican ideas.  As we have seen through history, white Americans and particularly white males vote republican, this is why the majority of white Americans did not vote for Obama in 2008. Typically families are made up of people with the same ideals, and these families tend to associate with others that have similar ideals. Such an environment creates small communities for their children to be raised in with the same ideas being reinforced into their children. These children are surrounded by these ideas and they come to believe them. This is a chain that has been happening since 1770’s or even longer. It is a very in depth topic to try and analyze; researchers have been studying this phenomena for years now.  From an almost naïve point of view here is what it comes down to. In 2008, 46% of white women voted for Obama while only 41% of white men did. In terms of gender, the majority of white males vote republican because of the ideas passed down from their ancestors. White women also tend to vote republican because they tend to be raised in the same environments as the males and are also taught the same ideas. However, they are more likely to switch to the Democratic Party than males. Minority groups tend to vote democratic and women historically have been defined as a minority. Also women could not even vote until 1920 which makes them more likely to vote democratic in order to revolutionize the general ideas of the Republican Party that held them back for so long.  54% of whites under the age of 30 voted for Obama; this was the only age category where the majority of whites voted for him. It is very typical for older white citizens to vote republican because they are very set in their ways. Even today you can still hear an elderly person use the “n” word when referring to an African American. These older people were raised on republican values, and have grown to view these ideas as right, so they vote that way trying to keep people with their ideas in charge.

As for young voters, they seem to want change. In 2004, P. Diddy started a campaign called Vote or Die in an attempt to get more young people to vote. He let the young voters know that they could swing an election if enough of them voted. 1.2 million young people used his campaign to register to vote. In the past few years the United States as a nation has seen great change and many people fighting for more change. With young voters today being able to learn the views of their parents, but the views of celebrities, and learn more about each political party online (resources that were not available to past generations), they are not just voting in the ways of their parents but in what they believe. Nevertheless, there will always be those young voters who vote democratic (or republican) to spite their parents. The ability to know who your favorite celebrity is voting for could create bias in many young people who don’t know much about the election. This means that some young people may vote based on who their favorite celebrity is voting for. For example, P. Diddy and many other celebrities backed Obama during the election.( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpdDdzH3VqU ) There are many different factors leading to why people vote the way they do so this is a generic overview of a few of these factors.