National Chair of the CRNC Alex Smith says 'misconceptions' were found. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Report: How GOP lost young voters

A new postmortem on the November elections from the nation’s leading voice for college Republicans offers a searing indictment of the GOP “brand” and the major challenges the party faces in wooing young voters, according to a copy given exclusively to POLITICO on Sunday.

The College Republican National Committee on Monday made public a detailed report — the result of extensive polling and focus groups — dissecting what went wrong for Republicans with young voters in the 2012 elections and how the party can improve its showing with that key demographic in the future.


It’s not a pretty picture. In fact, it’s a “dismal present situation,” the report says.

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The 95-page study, which looked at the party’s views on social and economic issues, as well as its messaging and outreach, echoes a March report on the election debacle issued by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, which presented a devastating assessment of the party’s current state of affairs.

But in some ways the new report from inside the GOP tent is even more scathing and ominous — since it comes from the party’s next generation.

Titled the “Grand Old Party for a Brand New Generation,” the report is sharply critical of the GOP on several fronts. The study slams some Republicans’ almost singular focus on downsizing Big Government and cutting taxes; candidates’ use of offensive, polarizing rhetoric; and the party’s belly-flop efforts at messaging and outreach, even as the report presents a way forward and, at times, strikes an optimistic tone.

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In the report, the young Republican activists acknowledge their party has suffered significant damage in recent years. A sampling of the critique on:

Gay marriage: “On the ‘open-minded’ issue … [w]e will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table.”

Hispanics: “Latino voters … tend to think the GOP couldn’t care less about them.”

Perception of the party’s economic stance: “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”

Big reason for the image problem: The “outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices.”

Words that up-for-grabs voters associate with the GOP: “The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”

“[The] Republican Party has won the youth vote before and can absolutely win it again,” the report says, pointing to presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush who were competitive with that demographic. “But this will not occur without significant work to repair the damage done to the Republican brand among this age group over the last decade.”

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The report is based largely on two national surveys of 800 registered voters each, ages 18-29, and six focus groups of young people, including Hispanics, Asian-Americans, single women, economically struggling men and aspiring entrepreneurs in Ohio, Florida and California who had voted for President Barack Obama — he cleaned up with 60 percent of the youth vote — but were considered “winnable” for the GOP.

It comes several months after Priebus released the RNC’s “Growth and Opportunity Project” assessment, but the CRNC — which bills itself as the oldest and largest political youth organization in America — is an independent entity claiming 250,000 members on 1,800 campuses across the country. The surveys were developed by the Winston Group, a Washington-based GOP polling firm spearheaded by a former longtime adviser to House Speaker John Boehner. Alex Schriver, who served as the chairman of the CRNC during the election and is a co-author of the report, declined to say how much the study cost but called it a “significant investment.”

Leaders of the organization will publicly release the study Monday and will present their findings privately to Republican officials and outside groups, though current CRNC Chairwoman Alex Smith declined to specify who would be there.

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Part of the report addresses one of the hottest and most contentious social issues of 2013: gay marriage. As increasing numbers of young people — including Republicans — voice support for same-sex marriage, the CRNC tested the extent to which the issue is a deal-breaker for young voters. It found about a quarter of those surveyed said they couldn’t vote for someone who opposes gay marriage — a finding the report characterized as “neither a hopeless situation for the GOP nor a great one.” But it does pose problems if the party wants to be perceived as more tolerant, the report noted.

“On the ‘open-minded’ issue, yes, we will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table,” the authors wrote. “In the short term, the party ought to promote the diversity of thought within its ranks and make clear that we welcome healthy debate on the policy topic at hand.”

On immigration, the young Republicans called on the GOP to more clearly recognize “the difference between legal and illegal immigrants and to also differentiate illegal immigrants from the children of illegal immigrants.”

Concerning reproductive issues that have tripped up GOP candidates, “the Republican Party has been painted — both by Democrats and by unhelpful voices in our own ranks — in holding the most extreme anti-abortion positions,” the report said. Republicans need to avoid allowing the abortion debate to be “conflated” with debates over contraception, rape and Planned Parenthood, the report recommended, though the party needn’t alter its stance on the issue of abortion itself.

Turning to a key talking point during the election, the report found that while Republicans during the 2012 cycle invoked jobs and the economy at every turn, the younger age group was put off by the way the GOP presented those issues.

“Policies that lower taxes and regulations on small businesses are quite popular. Yet our focus on taxation and business issues has left many young voters thinking they will only reap the benefits of Republican policies if they become wealthy or rise to the top of a big business,” the report says. “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”

Younger voters — especially those in the Hispanic focus groups the CRNC conducted — are deeply familiar with the challenges posed by a less-than-robust economy, the report said, citing struggles with student loans and people who are delaying marriage because of financial issues. But the study said the party must explain how its policies translate into chances for economic advancement and should seek to do so in a more “caring” tone.

“If we don’t believe that Republicans are the ‘fend for yourself’ party, then it’s time for us to explain why — and to show our work,” the report said. “This will go a long way overall, but particularly with Latino voters, who tend to think the GOP couldn’t care less about them.”

The college Republicans warned that the party’s primary message of cutting taxes and reducing the size of government failed to resonate. In fact, one of the CRNC’s polls found that 54 percent of young voters said “taxes should go up on the wealthy” while only 3 percent said “taxes should be cut for the wealthy.” Bashing Big Government also didn’t play well and was even damaging, according to some of the focus groups, the study found.

“We found that there were misconceptions and common ways of thinking among people who didn’t view the Republican Party favorably that were simply not in accord with where the party actually stands,” Smith told POLITICO.

That was especially the case with certain economic issues. The report said that on many questions tied to that subject, young people and the GOP are, in fact, on the same page: support for entrepreneurship and small businesses and slashing spending in many instances, for example. But that common ground often got lost for young voters.

To combat that, the report stressed that the GOP should better explain how its policies translate into economic growth for the country and for individuals. On an issue that hits especially close to home for young voters — student loans — Democrats are perceived as taking more action.

“‘I think they’re more in tune to what we need right now with student loans, getting a job, fixing the housing market and the environment,’ observed one focus group participant from Orlando, Fla., with another adding that he had ‘heard Obama once say, Oh, he has student loans, he went to school, he knows what we’re going through,’” the report said, calling on the GOP to outline ways to make college more affordable.

Some members within the party haven’t been helpful on the explanation front, muddling or distracting from the party’s positions by going too far in various statements, the report noted, and causing problems for the GOP brand.

“It is not hard to find examples of Republican missteps in the 2012 election that enhanced this brand challenge,” the study said. “Whether the infamous “47 percent” remarks made by [Mitt] Romney or the “legitimate rape” comments made by Rep. Todd Akin in his Senate campaign, there were numerous examples of Republican leaders making statements that were terribly out of step with where voters – particularly young voters – stand.”

“Something the report stresses is the rhetoric and the language of acceptance has to be a part of our strategy going forward,” Smith said.

On issues ranging from gay marriage to foreign policy, the report acknowledged ongoing debates within the party. The generation that grew up with a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan appears less interested in defense spending and less concerned about terrorism than older leaders of the GOP, with only 17 percent of respondents from one survey calling keeping citizens safe from terrorism one of their top priorities for elected officials, and many opposing an expanded military.

“Focus group participants consistently characterized Republicans as the party that was strong on defense, but did not always mean that as a positive; the key for the party is to merge that attribute with fiscal responsibility, rather than allowing the two to stand in conflict,” the report said.

The report does not contain many specific policy recommendations on issues like immigration or gay marriage — the authors said they would leave that up to elected officials and leaders of the party.

“We didn’t want to go so far as to say, ‘You must take this position to win young voters,’” Schriver said. “The purpose of the report is, we need to do a better job communicating our principles. …We wanted to put out a product that candidates, whether they agree or disagree on [various issues], can find useful.”

On an optimistic note, the reports says, “Our research finds both a dismal present situation and an incredible opportunity for turning the GOP brand around.”

The GOP should seek to be viewed as “smart,” the report suggested, nodding to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has warned against being the “stupid party.”

“I would say what the report conveys is frustration,” Schriver said. “As we sat in those six focus groups they would continually say they agree with policies we know we hold, but they didn’t equate those policies with the Republican Party. That’s really one of the biggest takeaways of this document. … We need to do a better job communicating. It boils down to dorm-room issues, how policies we are promoting are going to affect young people today.”