2008 The Kids Are All Right
posted by on January 4 at 11:26 AM
Here’s the story on the youth turnout for Obama. (See the Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International entrance poll results—based on a sample of 2,178 Dem voters—at the New York Times, and further analysis of the same poll by The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement.)
Young voters went overwhelmingly for Obama, and 30-44-year-olds loved him too. Meanwhile, Clinton—with her free sandwiches and shoveled walks and volunteer drivers for seniors—won a robust plurality of the 65+ crowd. Edwards eked out a narrow lead among the huge number of voters between 45 and 64, but it was too tiny a margin to deliver a victory.
| % of total turnout | Obama | Clinton | Edwards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22%: 17-29 years old | 57 | 11 | 14 |
| 18%: 30-44 years old | 42 | 23 | 21 |
| 38%: 45-64 years old | 27 | 28 | 31 |
| 22%: 65 and older | 18 | 45 | 22 |
In other words, the 40% of Iowa caucusgoers who are under the age of 45 delivered the state for Obama. Future primary campaigns will have a much tougher time dismissing younger voters as all enthusiasm and no follow-through.
It’s also interesting to compare turnout over the last three caucuses. 13% of eligible under-30-year-olds turned out for either the R or D caucus yesterday (against 17% of over 30s); this is a huge jump from the 4% turnout of under 30s in 2004 and 3% in 2000. At the same time—even with a huge overall jump in turnout for the Democratic caucus—under 30s increased their proportion of overall caucusgoers from 17% in 2004 to 22% in 2008.
Dems need to turn out younger voters if they’re going to win in 2008. Obama is showing everyone else how it’s done.
In a time long ago some kids got McGovern nominated. People don't discount younger citizens ability to work hard and show up in the primary, the question is whether that will carry through to the election. There has been a slight uptick in the last few elections but will the trend continue and with enough numbers to win in November?
Remember McCarthy? This isn't anything new.
It's that if our candidate doesn't get to the primaries, then why vote at all... that was the assumption of THE PAST. But it's the future, and let's do something different.
Interpretation 1: Like Clinton in 1992, Obama will turn out the youth vote in droves and ride his way to the White House.
Interpretation 2: Like McGovern in 1972, Obama will get the nom thanks to a small constituency of young, dedicated Obamaniacs who, unfortunately, don't translate into a nationwide movement and he proceeds to get stomped by the reactionary old fogeys in the general election.
I lean more towards (1) in this particular case, but we should be a little wary of (2).
Mr/Ms whatever@1:
Perhaps this will motivate our callow youth:
http://www.tshirthell.com/shirts/products/a374/a374_bm.gif
it's driving me fucking batty that even after these results, people want to dismiss the youth vote as insignificant. this election cycle has just gotten started and has already proven to be unlike any other we've ever seen. so fuck you to everyone who thinks nothing ever changes. FUCK! YOU!!!
i think the very real prospect of 100 years of warfare [that's mccain's latest pitch, FYI] would be enough to make the youngsters vote this election cycle. just maybe.
It'd be nice to think that the 18-30 year group would actually turn out at the polls. Historically, that hasn't been the case. Locally, btw, if the youth vote had turned out (thanks Stranger for at least trying), the Monorail might be up and running now. 'Course, that was a couple years ago and maybe the 18-30 crowd has learned something about participatory democracy in the in-between years.
i'll vote this election as i have in every election since of age. i will vote for dem as i always have but i don't like depending on a big youth turnout for a positive results.
homo will - you probably meant get to the finals and McGovern did. maybe O will be different - if he's in the finals i certainly hope he is different and younger progressives turn out.
I don't think Obama is like McGovern at all. Yes, he's opposed to an unpopular war led by an unpopular president. But Nixon wasn't anywhere NEAR as unpopular as Bush is, not in 1972, and the Vietnam War wasn't anywhere near as unpopular as Iraq.
More importantly, Obama is getting a ton of support from independents and moderate Republicans. That was certainly never true of McGovern. McGovern rode the youth vote in from the left wing of the party, but Obama is far more pragmatic and centrist.
Doesn't mean he wins, of course. There will still be people who are afraid to pull the lever for a black man. And the youth vote is hugely overrated -- they STILL don't turn out; even if they're turning out a little more, it's still less than everyone else. Old people in particular vote like crazy. In November, the old people vote you have to worry about isn't for Clinton, it's for whomever the Republican is.
But it's still an impressive and cheering moment. I hope he can carry that momentum forward. There's a lot of campaigning left.
Sen Obama also won the female vote, by the way.
You're either part of the 21st Century or you're not.
News flash: it's the 21st Century so stop whining about change and get with the program!
Super Tuesday is gonna be much more telling. The youth vote may very well dwindle once the focus is changed from a single state, once every individual vote is diluted in the national fray. Youth voting apathy and weakness of an individual vote go hand-in-hand.
Last Dem to get out the youth vote was Clinton. What happened to the young ones that voted for Clinton when the 2000 election happened? I grudenly back Edwards at the moment, but will probably vote for Ron Paul. Interesting article on how the Dem Primary system has a built in firewall that could give the nomination to Clinton unless Obama really kicks ass: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18277678/ It says Clinton is already ahead of Obama. As a realist I think the democratic party is going to rape “hope,” as always. Not that I believe in Obama, I just feel sorry for the fools backing him now.
Close elections rely on last minute get out the vote efforts. The past two presidential elections have shown that evangelicals are really good at getting out the vote. Any campaign that relies on getting out the vote of younger voters has a tough road ahead of it. Every four years marks the election where young people will make the difference and every four years it doesn't happen. Young people don't vote. Will they this year?
I just hope it's not a close election.
Fnarf I was only pointing out that the youth have propelled a candidate to the nomination in the past. Nixon was an incumbent, cheated, and MSM labeled Mc as a far lefty. What will happen to O we don't know but I'd bet it would have a lot to do with drug use. Sick but true.
Will this slog thanks the youth not the women so I directed my comments to that.
As for the 21st century - get some new glasses :p
Here is an interesting site of young voters' recent turnout and how they voted. Kerry did very well with younger voters.
http://www.civicyouth.org/Map.htm
Iowa is an anomaly in terms of its process. If youth were to vote in the same proportion as people over 50, it would create a massive political tidal wave across the country. But what signs do we have that this will happen? There's no draft to shock them out of their complacency, apathy and cynicism. Does anyone have any evidence that youth turnout will be much higher outside Iowa during this election? Though I guess there's a slight chance that a bunch of unsubstantiated media hype about Iowa can accidentally turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy...
While it's true that Obama did better than Clinton among women, it's also significant that he drew exactly the same percentage from both sexes: 35% of women and 35% of men cast their votes for Obama. Clinton drew 30% of the female vote versus only 23% of the male vote.
Trevor the best hope: cell phones and text messaging. If a big enough data base of Dem young people's cell numbers can be acquired maybe they can message them into the booth.
Would it be legal to send a message when they are in the booth? Just a 21st Century question?
gj, ron paul? you are an idiot.
Stats I can find do not show Clinton won on the youth vote - if anything on the over 60 vote, bigger spread and more voters.
Bump for Clinton but the winner for 18-24 percentage - McGovern
Nice chart
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2007-12-31-youth-vote_N.htm
@18 Bill Clinton got out the youth vote, and became president.
@17 The war in Iraq is a serious issue. Only Edwards has commited to ending it among the Dem 3. If Edwards does not get the nomination, I will have to vote for Paul.
I decided to make a pretty graph of the first part of what Annie said.
@19: Great, but when I'm talking "youth vote" I'm saying under 30, not under 25, because that's how this poll broke it down. And Obama won decisively with voters under 45--we're not talking little babies here.
annie your headline is "The Kids Are All Right" -
The big spread is with the little babies (57-11) and they turned out in Iowa. Had only 10% been babies, Obama would not have won.
Oh, I adore the kids--and you're absolutely right, they deserve most of the credit for Obama's surprising margin of victory. Nonetheless, 42-23 is a huge spread too, and that's 30-44 year olds.
da yout's also provided top age-group shares for Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, Huckleberry Hound, Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson.
50,000 Democratic "kids" (up to age 30) turned out to caucus last night.
In Novemeber 2004, 135,000 Iowa "kids" voted for Kerry (who still lost the state).
Fuck the "Youth Vote". They were supposed to make a difference last election too, remember? They got the President that their apathetic asses deserved. Fuck 'em. I doubt very much that they will make the difference that everyone is jizzing themselves all over about. I hope they prove me wrong, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
@26 - the youth vote turned out in 2006, just as much as the old folks did - as I recall the numbers were fairly matched, so don't blame them just because the Independents sold America down the river.
I blame Nader. Still.
sorry 2004
@26 --- Completely agree about Nader as well. Idiots.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).