This survey examined in detail the attitudes and behavior of three American generations — the Millennials, Gen-X'ers, and Baby Boomers — and, within the Millennials, three sub-generations, Teen Millennials, Transitional Millennials, and Cusp Millennials. Together the three generations consist of Americans 13-54 years old who were born from 1952-1993. Each of the three generations was born into a distinctive social milieu, was subject to distinctive child rearing practices, and faced a distinctive societal environment as it rose from infancy through childhood and into adulthood. According to the generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe, the particular experiences faced by each generation shaped the attitudes and behavior of that generation in a range of areas in distinction to those of the generations that preceded and followed.

Of present importance, the generations began to “come of age” and mature politically in decisively different periods ranging from the mid-196o's to the present. Our research suggests that, as in other areas of individual and societal life, the social and political environment into which each generation emerged influenced the political beliefs and perceptions of that generation. While it is true that generational variations in political attitudes, perceptions, and behavior are not as sharp as those based on strictly political variables such as self-perceived party identification and political ideology, generational political differences do exist. These generational political differences have the potential to influence election results, the style and tone of political discussion, and public policy direction as each succeeding generation emerges to shape and even dominate the political process as voters and office holders.

• Teen Millennials (13-17 years old) seem to be strikingly shaped by coming of age politically in an “age of terror.” Their political identifications are still significantly unformed: about half have no clear party identification or ideological connection and those who do are about evenly divided among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents and liberals/progressives, conservatives and moderates. They are particularly concerned with “security” issues such as crime and terrorism and cannot be easily pigeonholed in their political attitudes. On some issue clusters (controlling terrorism and crime and “social” issues such as abortion and same sex marriage they seem to lean “conservative” and on others (government economic intervention, educational policy, and environmental protection) they tilt “liberal/progressive.” At this point, unlike other Millennial subgroups, they tend to be relatively skeptical about the political process, but they are generally more confident than other groups about how they will fare in the future, especially economically.
  
  
• Transitional Millennials (18-22 years old) and Cusp Millennials (23-28 years old) started their political awareness during the Clinton years. While their political identifications are still not fully formed, the greatest number in both groups tend toward a Democratic party identification and a liberal/progressive ideological orientation, the Transitional Millennials more than the Cusp Millennials. These two older Millennial groups, especially the Transitional Millennials, are more likely than any others to hold opinions considered to be “liberal” or “progressive” across virtually all issue clusters: economic intervention, environmental protection, security, crime, education, and social issues. Finally, these two Millennial groups tend to have relatively positive and optimistic perceptions of the political process and their economic futures.
  
  
• Gen-X'ers (29-40 years old) arose to political awareness during the Reagan-George H.W. Bush Republican ascendancy. Overall, Gen-X'ers, especially males, are more Republican in their party identification and conservative in their ideological orientation than any other generation. Concern with the economy and taxes ranks high for this group. The Gen-X'ers seem quite pragmatic in their attitudes on political issues and appear to position themselves on an almost issue-by-issue basis. They tend to favor strict punishment as the best means of handling crime and are more likely than any other group to believe the invasion of Iraq was correct. The Gen-X'ers seem broadly to favor a libertarian position on social issues such as abortion and same sex marriage and moderate (or pragmatic) positions on environmental protection, economic intervention, and educational policies. Consistent with this, they tend to fall between the relatively optimistic Millennials and the relatively pessimistic Baby Boomers in their overall perceptions of the current political environment, but lean toward the pessimism of the older generation. They are sharply more pessimistic about their economic future, but more positive about their family and religious lives, than the Millennials.
  
  
• Baby Boomers (41-54 years old) first came to political awareness during the cultural turmoil and failed presidencies of the late 1960's and 1970's. Overall, the Baby Boomers are fairly evenly divided in their party and ideological identifications, a situation that is, in large measure, the residue of a gender gap between strongly Democratic women and more Republican and conservative men. The Baby Boomers seem to take a moralistic and value-oriented approach to politics. Consequently, they are highly concerned with almost all issues, but especially the economy, healthcare, changes in societal values and the Iraq war and they tend to hold strong and relatively extreme positions on most issues. But the Baby Boomers are not clearly either “liberal/progressive” or “conservative” across all issue clusters. On some (lifestyle and crime) they seem “conservative” and others (the Iraq war) they are relatively “liberal.” On still others (economic intervention and environmental protection) they are relatively polarized, to some extent along gender lines. Perhaps because they began to emerge politically during the turmoil and rocky politics of the 1960's and 1970's, the Baby Boomers hold more negative perceptions of the political process than other generations. Finally, the Baby Boomers are more pessimistic about their economic futures and more optimistic about their religious and family lives than any other generational group.