Staggering! Youth turnout increased by 3.4 million votes for a turnout of at least 52%

[babylonsister]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/382073/the_power_of_young_voters?rel=hpbox

The Power of Young Voters
posted by Cora Currier on 11/08/2008 @ 3:48pm


The numbers are in: youth turnout increased by 3.4 million votes over 2004, for a turnout rate of at least 52 percent. As raw numbers go, this election marks the largest youth turnout since 1972, when the voting age was lowered to 18. In an election that saw a large increase in overall voter turnout, CIRCLE, a civic engagement think-tank, estimates that people under 30 accounted for 60 percent of that overall increase.

There's no question that Barack Obama overwhelmingly beat out John McCain among young voters. While the overall vote split was roughly 53 percent to 46 percent, among young voters Obama won in a landslide: 66 percent to McCain's 31. This split by age group is unprecedented, according to CIRCLE-- youth have historically deviated from the overall margin by only 1.8 percentage points.

While claiming that any one group is responsible for a win is near-impossible, there's no question that young voters comprised a major force no matter how you slice-and-dice the electorate. African-American and Latino voters also solidly backed Obama, and large numbers of those groups were also young voters. According to an analysis by James Carville, young voters were crucial to Obama's victory in toss-up states like Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina. Mike Connery at Future Majority has a great set of maps representing the youth vote visually-- including one that shows how blue the country would be if only youth voted in 2004 and 2008. The difference between the two elections is striking.

Whether or not they single-handedly gave Obama the win, young voters have given Obama and the Democrats a mandate and redefined their role in American politics.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. K&R.

[EconomicLiberal]

2. Does anybody have a link to the analysis by Carville?

I'd be interested in reading it.

[alsame]

3. Kick for the youth of America. And many had to stand on line

for hours to vote :yourock:

[nam78_two]

4. Excellent-very encouraging.nt

[ROh70]

5. But , but . . .the MSM said the youth vote was flaking out! This, this can't be!

The youth are cynical, lazy, unmotivated loser slackers!! They were out smoking dope and playing on their x-boxes, they didn't go out and vote or canvass or phone bank or drive voters to polling places. Those numbers must be made up. I'm sure the Washington Post will show that youths didn't really show up to vote and that McCain actually won.

[d_b]

6. w00t

turned 27 on the 6th and couldn't have wished for a better present.

[d_b]

7. I can't get enough of these articles

I am so proud of my age group. ;)

[mrreowwr_kittty]

8. If their turnout is that high now, it will only continue to climb.

Voting participation increases with age, obviously, and the party people vote in their first 2 or 3 elections almost invariably becomes their lifelong affiliation.

[slampoet]

9. So EVERY Network Was LYING TO US.

[Waiting For Everyman]

10. Wow! Kudos, under-30 voters!

That's impressive!

[jefferson_dem]

11. I'm glad to read this but a bit confused.

According to exit polls reported on CNN, 18-29s accounted for:

18% of the electorate in 2008 -
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls.main/

17% of the electorate in 2004 -
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

That is an improvement over four years ago and Barack won young voters better than 2:1. Honestly, I was hoping for a larger wave of Millenials at the polls. Nonetheless...I'll take it.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

15. The numbers might be blunted by higher turnout in other groups.

For example, black voters over 30, which would have increased the black turnout's percentage while minimizing the youth percentage, even though many more youth voted than in 2004.

[Coexist]

12. K & R!

[fishwax]

13. outstanding :)

[jenmito]

14. K&R since everyone in the "liberal" media said the youth turnout was just about the same as in

other years and that the reason Obama won was due mostly to the BLACK voters (as if it's supposed to minimize his win and show his plan to be a "failure.") :eyes:

[tabbycat31]

16. I'm 28 and glad my vote helped

As a 28 year old who just voted in my 3rd presidential election, I can remember the "I don't give a expletive" crowd from the 2000 election. I was the only one of my friends who voted then.

Now everyone did. I was raised in a fairly political household (named after a political figure's daughter, and my dad's in local politics), so I was pushed to know the importance of voting from an early age.

[Egnever]

17. the generation coming up now is wired

They know the web, propaganda does not fool them as easily.