The Youth Vote

Young people are fired up about the 2008 election. This week we saw more than 3 million voters under the age of 30 flooding the polls on Super Tuesday, turning out in record numbers in more than 20 states. Exit polls showed that in almost every state, youth voter turnout increased significantly from 2000 and 2004. Some of these statistics are amazing: In Tennessee the number of people between the ages of 18-to-29 who voted more than quadrupled. In Georgia, young voters tripled their turnout this year. And in California, more than 850,000 voters under 30 cast ballots. This stuff is very encouraging. The turnout of young people actually represented the winning margin of victory in some states. For example, Barack Obama won Missouri by just 10,000 votes. That’s a state where 75,000 young people voted for him. The fact is Obama probably owes thanks to young people for a lot of his Super Tuesday victories. In fact, Obama won the youth vote in 19 of the 22 states that voted on Tuesday. The head of “Rock the Vote” is optimistic. She says: “Young people are tired of being characterized as apathetic and uninterested in politics. They are casting ballots like never before, volunteering on campaigns, organizing at their schools, and have shown, since the first contest in January, they will pick the next President of the United States.”
None of this is lost on the campaigns. Candidates are targeting young voters through the internet and any other way they can reach them.

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