MILLENNIALS ARE STILL DEMOCRATS. THE PROBLEM IS, THEY'RE NOW PRETTY MUCH LIKE OLDER DEMOCRATS.

That new Harvard survey of millennials is getting a lot of attention, and yes, this is bad news for the Democratic Party at this moment:

A new national poll of America's 18- to 29- year-olds by Harvard's Institute of Politics (IOP), located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, finds slightly more than half (51%) of young Americans who say they will "definitely be voting" in November prefer a Republican-run Congress with 47 percent favoring Democrat control -- a significant departure from IOP polling findings before the last midterm elections (Sept. 2010 – 55%: prefer Democrat control; 43%: prefer Republican control).

But while there's significant drift toward the GOP, millennials are still Democrats -- they're just much more typical Democrats, which means they don't vote in midterms.

While more 18- to 29- year-olds (50%-43%) surveyed in the IOP's fall 2014 poll would prefer that Congress be controlled by Democrats instead of Republicans, the numbers improve dramatically for the GOP when only young people who say they will "definitely vote" are studied. Among these likely voters, the IOP's latest poll shows the preference shifting, with slightly more than half (51%) preferring a Republican-run Congress and 47 percent wanting Democrats to be in charge.

Millennials overall: pro-Democrat by 7 points. The subset of definite voters: pro-Republican by 4.

That just means millennials are becoming like their elders. Compare the results to the latest ABC/Washington Post poll, released Monday:

When asked whether they will vote for the Democrat or the Republican in their House districts, 50 percent of likely voters say the Republican and 44 percent say the Democrat. Among the larger universe of registered voters, Democrats have an edge -- 47 percent to 44 percent.

But millennials lean D on the issues somewhat more than their elders, according to the Harvard results. By 9 points, millennials blame Republicans more than Democrats for Washington gridlock (but they blame "All of them" most). They favor Democrats over Republicans on the economy by 4, on immigration by 6, on race relations by 18, and on health care by 8 (though there are a lot of "Not sure"s and "Declined to answer"s in all those categories).

Plutocrats and conservatives don't want the economy to recover for ordinary Americans as long as a Democrat is in the White House, and the president hasn't done enough to either push back against that, nor has he succeeding in framing the problem correctly. This never used to work well with the young, but it's working now. Young voters have less hope and are now more willing to shrug and say, "Let the other guys have a chance." Despite copious evidence, they don't have a clear picture of what "the other guys" are actually like. (Only 38% of them say they follow politics "very" or "somewhat closely.") o they're growing up to be typical American left and centrist voters -- disinclined to support the Republican agenda but not informed or motivated enough to oppose electing Republicans. Mission accomplished, GOP.