"Conventional wisdom" — reflected in an article by this reporter earlier this week — "has a name for candidates who rely on the youth vote: loser," said Michael McDonald, an expert on voter turnout at George Mason University. "Clearly, this was different."
Youth supported both winners—Senator Barack Obama (D) and Governor Mike Huckabee (R)—by the largest margins of any age group. Part of the reason for the young voter boom is that both Obama and Huckabee "are considered unorthodox from others running from their parties," said John Green, a professor of political science at the University of Akron in Ohio and a fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Morley Winograd unpacks some of this in the context of The Democratic race in a post over at myDD:
Not only did Clinton lose to Barack Obama by an almost six to one margin among Millennial Generation (those under 25) caucus attendees, but also her weakness in this age group was the key to her overall loss among women. While Hillary carried the over 45 female vote 36%-24%, Obama won women under 45 by a 50%-21% margin and the surprisingly strong turnout among young caucus goers turned that margin into an overall defeat among the female constituency Hillary was counting on the most. Had she and her tea m only read their history, they wouldn't have been surprised by this outcome.
Every eighty years a "Civic" generation, like the GI Generation and now the Millennials, comes along with a determination to use their size and their facility with communication technology to change the political culture of America. 2008 will be the first election when Millennials, the largest generation in American history, born between 1982 and 2003, will be eligible to vote in sufficient numbers to tip the political scales to candidates who they favor, but they have already made their presence known to those analyzing election data, not just the latest poll results. They, along with the last remaining members of the GI Generation, were the only age groups to cast majority votes for John Kerry in 2004. The YouTube inspired involvement of Millennials in the Senate races in Virginia and Montana was the difference in those two close elections, returning Democrats to majority status in 2006. But those initial tremors are minor compared to the tsunami of change that Millennials will set in motion in the 2008 elections.
One of the phrases you hear through out the Obama campaign - FIRED UP, READY TO GO - appears to capture the energy that is rising up among the Millennials. And there is reason for continued hope in New Hampshire - There is reason for optimism. In 2004, the youth vote in New Hampshire was the highest in more than a decade, according to Student PIRGs' New Voters Project.
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