[,.,,] According to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center, 23 percent of Republican voters ages 18-29 have switched parties since 2015, against just 9 percent of Democratic voters in the same age range. As many as half of Republicans 30 and under have abandoned the party at one point or another during that time.

 

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight finds that Trump’s approval rating has sunk to 39.7 percent, its lowest since he assumed office—and that figure doesn’t account for the latest Comey memo revelations. The danger for Republicans is real, writes the Washington Post’s Philip Bump:

Studies have shown that partisan identity is formed early on, with partisanship tending to correlate to the popularity of the president in office. As FiveThirtyEight noted in 2014, the most fervent Republican voters are those who were 18 at the outset of the Eisenhower and Reagan presidencies; the most Democratic were those who turned 18 as George W. Bush was mired in the Iraq War.

Whether the Democrats are capable of harnessing that unrest is another question entirely. As the 2016 election made clear, demographics alone won’t save them. [....]