In The Kids Are All Left: How Young Voters Will Unite America (Melville House), Roosevelt University professor David Faris offers what Kirkus Reviews calls a “convincing and rousing argument” for how young voters will shatter the partisan stalemate.
As the 2020 election looms closer, Faris investigates the impact of a major generational shift in party preference.The Kids Are All Left explores how progressive young voters could end the deep divisions in U.S. politics. The Republican Party, Faris writes, faces “a demographic apocalypse which threatens to consign the GOP to permanent minority status for several generations.”
Drawing on survey and polling data, The Kids Are All Left lays out evidence to debunk the myth that voters become more conservative as they age. Booklist calls it “sharp and data-driven and wildly fun to read.”
Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt. His research focuses on American political institutions, elections and foreign policy. The Kids Are All Left emerged from trends that Faris noticed in his students’ political beliefs over a decade of teaching.
“When I started digging through the data about voting patterns and which party young people identify with, I saw a profound change in the electorate,” said Faris. “It’s unprecedented in the polling era to have close to 30 years’ worth of people who are all polling in one direction.”
The Kids Are All Left follows the recent success of It’s Time To Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics, which The New York Times called a “short, bracing polemic.” Faris is also a regular contributor to The Week.
Faris wrote The Kids Are All Left during a research leave from the College of Arts & Sciences. Each election cycle, he teaches political science courses on primary, midterm and presidential elections in the United States. This fall, he is teaching an honors seminar that coincides with the 2020 presidential election.