Welcome to the Voting and Elections Collection.

There are many in the political community who believe that any presidential primary polling at this point of the nominating process is virtually meaningless. With more than six months to go before the lead-off caucuses in Iowa, it is way too early to conduct significant polling, they say, because the results simply accent the standing of those candidates with high name recognition. Yet over the last dozen years, pre-primary polls taken during July of the pre-election year have been highly prescient.

Every 30 years or so of late, there has been a generational change in the White House. In 1960, the election of John F. Kennedy ushered into the presidency members of the “greatest generation”—raised during the Depression and combatants during World War II. In 1992, the election of Bill Clinton flipped the White House to the “baby boom” generation–steeped in the Great Society, urban race riots, and the war in Vietnam. Now, by the calendar, it appears that it is time for a new generation to take the helm.

It could be in the presidential election of 2020, almost certainly in 2024. And it would be “Generation X” into whose hands the presidency would be handed. (For the record, the birth years for baby boomers runs from 1946 to 1964; that of “Generation Xers” begins in 1965.)

Generally, the flip to a new generation of leadership is fueled by a strong feeling among voters that it is time for a change in the nation’s politics with a need for fresh faces and fresh thinking. For good measure, a “change of generation” election often features a sharp contrast in age between an elderly outgoing president and a relatively young new one.

In 1960, the outgoing president, Republican Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower, was 70 years old at the time of the election, having cultivated an avuncular, grandfatherly persona that made him seem at least that old throughout his eight-year presidency. Having successfully led the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, Ike was a respected elder statesman. But he was also publicly dogged by health issues that included several heart attacks during his presidency. His successor, Democrat Kennedy, had some hidden health problems of his own. But at 43, JFK was able to portray himself as the champion of an energetic new generation ready to assume national leadership.

In 1992, the dichotomy was much the same. Republican George H.W. Bush, age 68, was defeated by Democrat Bill Clinton, 46. Bush had served with distinction during World War II before beginning a long career in business and then politics. For the much younger Clinton, the military conflict of his generation involved the murky war in Vietnam that divided the country. Clinton had to weather charges during the campaign that he was a draft dodger. But he was able to sell himself as a smart, well-spoken “people” person and policy wonk, whose generation (the baby boomers) represented the future, not the past. The latter was underscored in his campaign song (appropriated from Fleetwood Mac): “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow.”

A similar type of generational change in the presidency could be shaping up for 2020. The incumbent, the 72-year-old Donald Trump, was the nation’s oldest president at the time of his inauguration, but hardly fits the part of an elder “statesman.” More like a boundless whirling dervish sowing chaos throughout the government, say his critics. As such, he appears to some to be more like a wayward adolescent than an aging codger.

The 2018 midterm elections will be remembered for a number of things. They produced a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, the first time the party has won House control in a decade, as well as a slew of Democratic pickups in governorships and state legislative seats. Republicans managed to hold onto the Senate—all of this constituting the first voter feedback to the tempestuous personality and controversial presidency of Donald Trump. In this Election Report, voting and elections expert Rhodes Cook analyzes voter turnout in the 2018 midterms in response to the changing consciousness of the nation.