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Over at The Next Right, Patrick Ruffini has some interesting reflections on the importance of an overwhelming youth vote -- though not necessarily an increased youth turnout -- for Obama's victory. Among voters between 18-29, Obama held an incredible 66-32 margin. But more importantly, congressional Democrats received virtually the same share: 63-34. That suggests that this wasn't just an Obama phenomenon, but that this demographic is firming up a Democratic political affiliation. Which, after the past few years, is rather what you'd expect. But it's worth saying that this wasn't inevitable. There's a belief out there that young voters are always and everywhere Democratic. But that's not been true in recent years:
A fairly good indicator of the health of a party is the attitudes of young voters who are being exposed to it for the first time. In the 1990s, Generation X was coming of political age, and according to polls conducted by the Pew Research group, Republicans held a 1 percent edge in party identification. In 2008, it is Generation Y that is choosing political allegiances for the first time, and these under-30-somethings show an astonishing 24 percent preference for the Democrats. Even Generation X, which gave Republicans a 3 percent edge as recently as 2004, now prefers Democrats by a margin of 12 percent.Moreover, young voters have become more Democratic by the year. In 2004, Kerry took them 54-45. In 2006, Democrats won young voters 60-38. And in 2008, Obama took them 66-32. As Ruffini says, "18 percent times a 25 percent increase in the Democratic margin equals 4.5 points, or a majority of Obama's popular vote margin. Had the Democratic 18-29 vote stayed the same as 2004's already impressive percentage, Obama would have won by about 2 points, and would not have won 73 electoral votes from Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Indiana." Not good news for Republicans, because the thing about young voters is that they're around for a very long time, and even if voting preferences aren't perfectly stable over a life cycle, early party affiliation is a fairly good predictor of later party affiliation.
