Adam Nagourney misses an opportunity to report on important youth vote statistics and trends in his New York Times article “Will Obama Rock the Youth Vote?” Worse than Nagourney’s lack of reporting though is the Obama Campaign Manager’s comment on the importance of the youth vote to their campaign.

The misunderstanding of the increase in youth voting from 2000 to 2004 is a common mistake. Leaders in the youth vote community are used to continually fighting back the outdated message of “young people don’t vote.” The figure the media used after the 2004 election and the figure Adam uses in his article talks about young people’s share of the electorate which is currently about 17%.

Nogourney is correct; in 2004 young voters did not increase their share of the electorate from 2000 to 2004 since it would have been pretty hard to physically create more young people. By 2015 though, young people will increase their share of the electorate to over 30%. That increase has more to do with the sheer size of the Millennial generation, which is huge – over 44 million strong – and less to do with their possible future turnout. As any political campaign knows, share of the electorate does not equate turnout.

Young voters did increase their turnout in 2004, reversing a downward trend since the voting age was lowered in 1971. In 2004, over 20 million young people cast their ballots, up 4.3 million from 2000. The 11% point turnout increase among young voters was more than double that of any other age group. To give a comparison, in 2004, the number of 18-29 year old voters was 20.1 million and rivaled the number of the “reliable” voters over the age of 65 which was about 23 million.

Figures aside, I care most about Democrats who are “relying” on the youth vote for a win and then in essence say we don’t matter, that we are just “icing on the cake.”

Obama’s Campaign Manager David Plouffe’s comment about the youth vote falls right into a familiar trap. Obama’s campaign has been amazing around young voters by holding “Obama Camps” to train them how to register their peers and creating a space online for young people to share their support of the campaign. Instead of talking about all of the innovative ways young people are involved in their campaign and how young people have brought in energy and money into the campaign, Plouffe states the youth vote “is not central to our strategy. It is additive to our strategy.” Obama’s campaign is making a serious mistake here. You cannot motivate a sector of a population to their face, tell them they are the hope of the campaign and then turn around in the media and say young people are basically just icing on the cake.

Clinton’s campaign strategist Mark Penn answers the youth vote question right when he says, “there is a younger vote – and it is a significant segment. But the age structure of the Iowa caucus vote is that it is a heavy preponderance of the older voter.”

Acknowledge the power of the youth vote, acknowledge the obstacles young voters face and then target us as voters. Don’t assume just because we show up at a rally or on MySpace that we will also turn out to the polls or caucus. Just like any constituency group you have to call, knock on the doors and go to places where that group of people hangs out to talk about the issues important to them. Campaigns must use these tried and true tactics to get young people to the polls and caucus as well.

My advice to any campaign staff when asked about young voters is to try this answer instead, “of course young people are central to our strategy, just like the hundred of thousands of voters of all ages who are excited about change. Our campaign now has to make sure we are talking to young people about the issues they care about and making sure they are included in our field plans because we know if we do that they will turn out in large numbers.”

Jane Fleming Kleeb is the Executive Director of the Young Voter Pac which helps Democratic candidates and State Parties win with the 18-35 year old vote through endorsements, on-the-ground support, training, strategy and money. She is a regular on Fox and MSNBC. In her spare time, Jane is working on a cookbook for people recovering from eating disorders at http://www.eatingpolitics.com.

Posted on October 9th, 2007
Categories: Presidential, Young Voters