Looking at the reasons Democrats did poorly last night, one key measure was the youth vote. Once again, the Democrats won the youth vote -- in fact, under-30 was the only age demographic that broke Democratic, according to an exit poll analysis from Rock The Vote. The graph above, produced by CIRCLE, tracks youth turnout during midterm elections. You can see that young voters actually took a step back from a 2006 high, when they made up 12 percent of the electorate as opposed to this year's 11 percent, but it's just not accurate to say youth have stepped back from politics.
Obviously, many analysts are comparing this year to 2008. That's unfair. The last presidential election was highly unusual in turnout for all voters, not just the young people who made up 18 percent of the electorate, though that demographic helped drive the Democrats' victory. Matching that level of excitement is hard during a midterm year, when all groups generally vote less. But what happened that led young people to stay home?
One major change was limited outreach; while CIRCLE found that states with active youth turnout operations saw more young people vote, many Democratic campaigns are still not doing enough to organize young people the way the Obama campaign did in 2008. The tone of this campaign was important as well, say several youth organizers I've spoken to -- the realities of governing are simply not as inspiring as the promises of first-in-a-generation election, especially with the Democrats' muddled message, and politics did not change after 2008. As an example, Obama's landmark student-loan reform was an also-ran in the debate compared to health-care reform. Perhaps most important, the economy has hit young people hard and directly: The youth unemployment rate is 19.1 percent, much higher among other demographics, a key cause of voter apathy.
While all of this hurt the Democrats, it does point the way toward a strategy to bringing young people back to the ballot box in 2010: Programmatic outreach, serious reform in efforts in Washington, more communication with young people about their priorities, and a focus on young people's economic opportunities.
-- Tim Fernholz
