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http://reason.com/blog/2014/09/09/young-millennial-libertarians-are-divers

 

Yesterday, Rachel Burger at Townhall made the case that “Libertarianism isn’t confined to Caucasians anymore.” Data from both the Pew Research Center and the Reason-Rupe poll bolster her thesis, particularly among younger people.

 

Pew finds that roughly equal numbers of white (12%) and Hispanic Americans (11%) say the term “libertarian” describes them well and know what the word means. However, considerably fewer African-Americans agree—3 percent self-describe as libertarian. Pew also finds young Americans are slightly more likely than older Americans to say libertarianism describes their political views: for instance 12 percent among 18-29 year olds compared to 9 percent among seniors.

 

The Reason-Rupe poll examines the largest and most diverse cohort—the millennials—finding corroborative data with Pew. The race/ethnicity of self-identified libertarian millennials reflects the national millennial sample as well as those of progressives.

 

The question was worded somewhat differently by asking millennials to choose only one ideological label of several. In addition to conventional labels like conservative and liberal, Reason-Rupe found 7 percent of millennials identify as libertarian and another 7 percent as progressive.

 

Reflecting the national millennial sample, among self-identified libertarian millennials, 56 percent identify as white, 21 percent as Hispanic, 14 percent as African-American, and 8 percent as Asian. These data suggest modern libertarianism among the millennial cohort seems to have broad appeal across racial and ethnic backgrounds.

 

We found similar results for progressives. Among self-identified progressives, 58 percent identified as white, 15 percent as Hispanic, 15 percent as African-American, and 7 percent as Asian.

 

 

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