Monday, April 28, 2008 3:04 AM
The record turnout among young voters in the Democratic caucuses and primaries held thus far presents the party with a unique opportunity: The chance to win the millennial generation.
Millennials were born between 1985 and 2004. They are the largest generation in our country's history, and those old enough to vote in this election are proving that they are a bloc to be reckoned with as many are flocking to Sen. Barack Obama's camp. Obama has won the youth vote in all but three Democratic primaries and Pew Research Center data show that on Super Tuesday, he received 57 percent of the votes among 18-to- 29-year-olds compared to 41 percent for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Past research has shown that young people are the demographic that politicians can count on the least. According to the Census Bureau, only 32 percent of voters aged 18 to 24 went to the polls in 2000. However, in 2004, the first election in which the oldest millennials could vote, more than 20 million Americans younger than 30 cast ballots, and exit polling revealed that they were the only age group to heavily favor Democrats. The youth vote in 2004 mirrored the high and surprise turnout of members of Generation X in the 1992 election, in which almost 50 percent voted.
Millennials are quickly defying the stereotype that young people are apathetic when it comes to politics, a label that Gen-Xers, unfortunately, never shed while in their 20s. As a Gen-Xer, I vividly remember analysts in the '90s claiming that we were a cynical group uninterested in the political process. Looking back, this is somewhat ironic because many in my generation who were old enough to vote in 1984 were drawn to Ronald Reagan, who campaigned on a message of hope and belief in the American dream.
Yet Gen-Xers as a whole were still considered indifferent about government and life in general. This aloof tag bothered me while in college. I had not at that time completely mapped out what I wanted to do professionally, but I was concerned about my community and the nation as a whole. I felt obligated to vote even though there was no presidential candidate that appealed to my peers in the way Obama's zeal and energy attracts millennials today.
If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, he will have an advantage among young voters. Statistics reported by the nonpartisan Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement show about 900,000 young people voted in Republican contests on Super Tuesday, compared with more than 2 million who cast their votes for Democratic candidates.
More:
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2008/04/28/jj28.ART_ART_04-28-08_A7_AOA1IC7.html?adsec=politics&sid=101
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