Back in January, Time Magazine proclaimed 2008 “The Year of the Youth Vote,” and a few weeks earlier signaled where it stands with “Obama’s Youth Vote Triumph.” Here is a list of press releases from Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement that gives information on the youth vote (18- to 29-year-olds) in the primaries so far, and they show strong gains over the 2000 numbers. In the Texas primary, for instance, youth turnout nearly tripled, and the Ohio primary saw a bounce of 10 percentage points. In Ohio, the cohort went 61-35 Obama over Clinton, and in Texas it was 58-42 Obama.
It is tempting to regard the youth vote, then, as a decisive factor in November. But here’s a story in Salon that downplays its impact. It notes how low the 2000 numbers were for 18-24-year-olds (only 32.3 percent voted in the presidential election), and also how 2004 saw a sizable jump in participation to 41.9 percent. Kerry won 54 percent of the youth vote.
Here’s the thing, Salon says:
“Despite the gains of 2004, however, the net import of all these figures is this: 18- to-29-year-olds supplied a minuscule portion — only about .03 of a percent — of Gore’s ultimate popular-vote margin in 2000 . . . and couldn’t put Kerry over the top, even though their increased turnout and swing toward the Democrats added 1.53 percent to Kerry’s popular vote total in 2004.”
The author, Paul Maslin, thinks that we will probably see the same impact on the overall figures this November, and he adds another interesting reason why. He worked for the Howard Dean campaign in ’04 in Iowa, and what he saw there convinced him that there is a generational backlash against all the youth exuberance. When older groups see so much enthusiasm among the youth, they react and mobilize. Back in ’04, when “graying Iowans” saw so many out-of-state kids “knocking on their doors, decked out in orange ski hats and claiming to be part of ‘the perfect storm,’ [they] decided they didn’t want what the youngsters were selling.”
And today, the more “messianic” Obama appears to the young, the more “aged wine there is for McCain & Co. to sip.”
Only if the youth vote jumps another 8-10 percent, he concludes, and only if Obama can boost his advantage with the young to 15 points, six points higher than Kerry’s advantage, will the kids be decisive.
