Issues and Inheritance in the Formation of Party Identification

Movement of party identification, both within and across generations, is increasingly seen as responsive to current policy preferences. We explore cross-generational change using three-wave parent-offspring data. The results strongly support the revised view of a more malleable partisanship influenced by offspring issue preferences. Nonetheless, parents play a major role in determining the initial political direction of their offspring and continue to play a significant though reduced role in the over-time development of their adult children. The results are similar for presidential preferences, though parental influence is entirely channeled through offspring partisanship.