Denver — If 2008 is the year of the youth vote, then the 2008 Democratic National Convention might be the convention of the youth delegate. There are 631 delegates under the age of 31 here this week, along with 118 alternates, 55 standing-committee members, and 74 pages.
Those young voters make up 16 percent of all delegates this year, compared with 11 percent in 2004 and 9 percent in 2000.
Jason Rae, a senior at Marquette University and the youngest of the superdelegates (local party leaders who get automatic seats at the convention), attributes the increase in young Democrats’ participation to efforts by the party’s youth council. The council spent the last year training young voters on how to run to be a superdelegate.
Mr. Rae, who gained near-celebrity status during the Democratic primaries, when it appeared that superdelegates might decide the party’s nomination, is co-chairman of the council.
The Republican Party has not officially released its tally of young delegates, but the Democrats claim the number is only 2 percent of the total delegates for the GOP. That disparity shouldn’t come as a huge surprise because Sen. Barack Obama maintains a 23-percentage-point lead among young voters over Sen. John McCain, according to a poll released here today by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics.
The poll, which surveyed 1,031 18- to 24-year-olds, also found that 83 percent of Senator Obama’s supporters were excited about the election, compared with 56 percent of Senator McCain’s young supporters.
Leigh Arsenault, youth director of Obama for America, said young voters were “integral to our campaign.”
“They are the backbone, the heart and soul,” she said at a news conference. But it would be a mistake to attribute young voters’ enthusiasm entirely to Senator Obama, said John Della Volpe, director of polling for the Harvard institute.
Youth voting has been on the rise since 2001, when the terrorist attacks on the United States instantly made politics “tangible and relevant” to young voters, he said at an luncheon event. At the same time, the rise of social-networking Web sites has made it easier for the political parties to reach young voters.
“Technology has changed,” he said. “It is now significantly less expensive to acquire a youth vote than it used to be.”
Other presidential-election years, though, have also been dubbed years of the youth vote. They include 1972, when 48 percent of eligible young people voted, and 1992, when 40 percent did.
