inclined to blame Republicans
for monkey-wrenching progress, the mere fact of partisan
bickering could dampen enthusiasm and depress turnout.
The Harvard Institute of Politics survey found significant
reductions in the percentage of
young Americans who say they
have clicked the “like” button
on Facebook in support of political candidates and political
issues, a development that may
speak to social media fatigue
as much as it does to political
disenchantment.
Obama took the White House
by persuading large numbers of
young people to vote. His reelection now appears to hinge
on a repeat from this historically fickle crowd. Despite the relative surge, youth turnout was
still just 49 percent in 2008, as
compared to 66 percent among
those 30 and over, according
to CIRCLE’s analysis. In both
1996 and 2000, only about 36
percent of Americans under-30
bothered to vote. Signs now
point to a return to the mean.
“Almost every indication
that I personally have looked
at since 2009 indicates that
young people are less interested
in voting now than they were
in 2008,” says Harvard’s Della
Volpe. “There’s significant pes-
simism, mistrust and lack of
belief that system is working.”
GET OUT THE VOTE
For Democratic strategists, the
youth vote beckons as a prodigious frontier of fresh support waiting to be harvested.
It also carries dividends that
transcend face-value electoral
arithmetic, lending the candidate the aura of trendy cool,
along with the subsidiary benefit of extra media attention.
Rolling Stone is surely not
pining to profile the candidate
who polls nicely among Rust
Belt-dwelling senior citizens,
but the minute an aspirant captures the attention of college
students, words like zeitgeist
start getting thrown into the
conversation, and comparisons
are made to the Kennedys.
Then, spillover can result.
“The passion that young
people had for Obama in 2008
carried over to having moderate
parents and grandparents casting votes for Obama,” says Della
Volpe. “Young people, maybe
for the first time in a while,
were persuading and influencing their parents rather than
the other way around.”
How that happened speaks
to a powerful confluence of
factors. Broad disgust with
ELECTION
2012
Obama &
Young Voters
HUFFINGTON
06.17.12