Young Voters Could Put Obama or Clinton in the White House

Maybe it's because of the compelling candidates. Maybe it's because it's easy to register online, and they've been following the election on Facebook for months now anyway. Or maybe it's just cool.

But young people are actually voting.

Obama supporters in Missouri cheer at a night time campaign rally.

Counter to the conventional wisdom that the youngest demographic of voters are among the most apathetic, progress has been made among the "millennials," and voter turnout has solidly increased this primary season. More than 5.7 million voters under the age of 30 have participated in the primaries and caucuses held thus far. That's a 109 percent increase from the last set of presidential primaries, according to Rock the Vote. And these are the primaries, where voter turnout is usually abysmal.

"I think everyone was pretty much expecting an increase...but the size of the increase was pretty surprising," says Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Looking toward the general election, 80 percent of young people surveyed in a post-Super Tuesday Rock the Vote poll said they were likely to cast votes in November, and 69 percent said they were excited, yes excited, to vote. In reality, turnout will probably more closely resemble the 49 percent who voted in 2004, up from 40 percent who voted in 2000.

At a time when voter turnout has been on the rise nationally, if young voters turn out this year, it would continue the trend of increased voter turnout among young people since 2004, when young voters were the only demographic that Democrat John Kerry won. Youth voter turnout had spiraled downward since 1972, the year after the voting age changed to 18, though it spiked in 1992 and marginally increased in 2000. In 2004, while voter turnout among the young saw the biggest increase, turnout overall among older voters was still better. Young voters went to the polls in increased numbers for the 2006 midterm election, helping Democrats regain control of Congress.

While the youth vote trended toward the Republicans in the 1980s, today it leans Democratic. As recently as 2002, Republicans were on equal footing with the Democrats in youth partisan identification. But then in 2006, the youth vote gave the Democrats a 21-point advantage, a gain surely wide enough to tip some close races in the Democrats' favor.

This time around, young people are again voting lopsidedly for the Democrats. On Super Tuesday, more than 3 million voters under 30 headed to the polls. Of those, more than 2 million voted in Democratic contests, and about 900,000 voted in GOP contests, according to CIRCLE. And the number of young voters participating in Democratic contests in 2008 outnumbers those participating in Republican contests in all states except Michigan, which lost its Democratic delegates, Utah, and Oklahoma.

All the support for the Democrats doesn't necessarily spell demise in this demographic for Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee. "Young voters have done a lot for Republicans in recent years; Kerry won the young vote but it wasn't by that big of a margin," says Levine. "I think they are trending Democratic, but they are in play."

In this year's primaries, McCain wrestled for the youth vote, losing it often in the South to Mike Huckabee. However, in 2000, he won it over George W. Bush in states like New Hampshire and Massachusetts, which allow independents to vote in their primaries. His known appeal among independent voters could help come general election time.

"I think he has an incredible number of strengths that he brings to the table," says Ethan Eilon, executive director of the College Republican National Committee. While young people identifying with both parties are concerned about the war in Iraq, other top issues for Republican youth are the economy and terrorism, according to a Rock the Vote poll taken in October 2007. For the Democrats, it's college affordability and healthcare. Focusing on fiscal responsibility and a strong national policy on defense, Eilon says, can help McCain win younger GOP voters and perhaps some vital independent voters too.

In addition, Levine says McCain's type of campaigning has gone over well with young voters. "What young people would want to see, Sen. McCain has a reputation for delivering—accessibility and candor," he says. But the biggest problem for McCain is proving that in voting for him, young people are getting something new. "They are going to have to show that this is a new administration," says Levine. "That's true of all Americans, but I think young people are especially interested in starting over."

And the candidate who has run on the message of change, not surprisingly, is the one who has fared the best among young voters. Barack Obama has drawn large crowds at colleges and universities across the country and created a flurry of activity among young folk on the Internet.

Obama won the youth vote in every state except California, Arkansas, and Massachusetts, losing it to Clinton in Massachusetts by a point. While he removed his name from the Michigan ballot because the state held its primary too early, "uncommitted" won the youth vote in that state against Clinton. And in New York, solid Clinton territory, Obama lost the race but won the youth vote by 13 points. In a combined sample of all 18- to 29-year-old voters on Super Tuesday, according to the Pew Research Center, Obama received 57 percent to Clinton's 41 percent. To help mitigate this trend, the Clinton campaign, among other things, has sent out daughter Chelsea as a surrogate, and the youngest Clinton has done her own tour of colleges and universities. But even since Chelsea Clinton's debut on the trail, Obama has managed to beat Clinton with the young, including in all four March 4 primary states, where he lost three of the races.

What makes Obama attractive to young voters is his message of hope and working together in Washington, Levine explains. "When we talked to young people last year, they were calling for something very much like Obama is giving to them," Levine says. "Young people don't like partisan division and bickering."

Obama's popularity on the Web has also played a role in getting young people to the polls, but it's hard to say by how much, Levine says. Obama had early support online. The Facebook group "Barack Obama for President in 2008" was created seven months before the Illinois senator actually entered the race and by young people unaffiliated with the campaign. The group grew "at an astonishing rate," says Famid Sinha, one of its first members. Sinha and others were tapped by the actual campaign to run "Students for Barack Obama," and the original Facebook group grew to more than 77,000 members. "I think Senator Obama really inspires Americans of all ages," the 22-year-old replies when asked why the candidate appeals to young people. "But we are usually not engaged in the political process."

This time around, many of them are engaged and, like the Facebook group, are organizing at a grass-roots level separate from the campaign and with help from the Internet. "We are running this thing on our own," says Sinha, now the national director of communications for Students for Barack Obama. "I think that's what a real movement looks like." Obama has also used the Internet to solicit millions in online campaign donations from his website.

But if Howard Dean, the first candidate to really reach out to young voters and campaign on the Internet, can be used as an example, Web support doesn't necessarily translate into electoral support among the young. Dean didn't win the youth vote during the 2004 primaries. It usually went to eventual nominee, John Kerry.

Though for Dean, reaching out to these voters was a step in the right direction, and his party won the youth vote in the two major elections since. The Democratic presidential candidates followed in his footsteps and hired youth coordinators to focus on this demographic. "The campaigns are reaching out to young people; they are going to college campuses, to high schools, and talking to us about things we care about," says Chrissy Faessen, communications director for Rock the Vote. Eilon from the College Republicans says he believes the McCain campaign will also try to attract the youngest demographic. McCain's 23-year-old daughter, Meghan, has already done her father a favor by producing a hip blog, McCainBlogette, that could turn on a younger set of voters to the 71-year-old senator.

And unlike the last two presidential elections where youth voters supported the candidate who's not living in the White House today, if the positive trends continue and young people head to the polls, they might finally shed the stereotype and replace it with a new one—that young people actually vote.