Time to panic? Young Republicans ditching GOP like never before

Another day, another piece of news about the Republican Party's continued problems with young voters. Generally, bad news for Republicans with this group isn't shocking. But a new study shows that the slow bleeding that has occurred for more than a decade has seemingly accelerated, with half of the young Republicans who remain having wandered away from the party in the last 14 months.

A few weeks ago, I debunked the notion that younger voters would one day naturally drift back toward the GOP through the natural aging process — that as time passed, young people would become more and more Republican.

Now, an incredible new study by the Pew Research Center shows that Republicans are not only failing to make gains with young people as time passes but are also shedding them at a rapid clip.

To gain this data, Pew conducted a panel study where the same set of voters were interviewed multiple times over the course of 14 months. In doing so, the Pew team was able to ask people what their party affiliation was and to see how often people changed their answer when reinterviewed months later. In general, Pew finds that most party identification is "sticky" and voters rarely budge from their party affiliation.

Except young Republicans.