Virginia's electorate getting younger
By: teacherken
Published On: 8/13/2008 12:33:00 AM
This comes from a story at WTOP entitled Nearly two-thirds of new voters under 35:
According to the State Board of Elections, about 64 percent of the more than 200,000 new voters who have registered since January are under the age of 35.
Two other sets of statistics from the article, this about Virginia:
In February, 134,968 voters ages 29 and younger cast ballots in the Democratic primary, compared with 52,714 in the Republican primary, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
And this comparing 2000 and 2004 nationally:
Nationally, according to CIRCLE, 47 percent of voters ages 18 to 24 went to the polls in 2004, up from 36 percent in 2000.
While the article offers the normal cautions that Republican are also trying to register younger voters (to vote for Grandpa?), it is clear that the vast bulk of the new younger voters are Democratic. This, plus the increased African-American participation, probably means that the model for likely voters being used by polling outfits understate Obama's support in Virginia perhaps by as much as 5%, and I would not be surprised to see similar patterns nationwide. Remember that in most of primaries and caucuses, the final polls tended to understate Obama's support.
Comments
People (Tiderion - 8/13/2008 2:34:08 AM)
underestimate the value of the youth vote these days. Young people are working harder than ever to support charitable causes world-wide. They are internet savvy and with that tends to come a higher degree of awareness. Most desperately care about the world they will soon inherit. And frankly, many do not think the older generations necessarily did a good job.
and there are a lot of them. (spotter - 8/13/2008 7:28:36 AM)
The young people voting for the President for the first time are the echo boomers. This is their first chance to make a mark, and it will change the equation.
Remember (Tiderion - 8/13/2008 9:49:48 AM)
we didn't get to vote for Al Gore back in 2000. We've been pissed off ever since. Hahaha...
We're going to need that. (Pain - 8/13/2008 6:39:16 AM)
We're going to need as much as we can get to offset the closet racist vote. My unofficial opinion is that we'll need a 5% lead in the opinion polls to pull it off, so hopefully these numbers, combined with the 'unpollable cell phone users' will push us over the top.
However, what about Southside registration? (Iechyd Da - 8/13/2008 8:59:35 PM)
The campaign, thus far, has failed to mobilize voter registration in Southside. Clearly, rural Southside counties and the cities of Martinsville, Danville, Petersburg, Hopewell, Richmond, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hampton, and Newport News are the localities richest in unregistered African American voters.
Though registration figures show some targeting done in the Tidewater cities, the rural Southside counties and cities lag in new registrants. This is a disappointment and surely would help Tom Perriello as well as Obama.