Young Voters Prove They Are Needed for a Democratic Win in 2008
Young Democrats Once Again Outperform Young Republicans
Washington, DC— Young people continued the trend of increased turnout and preference for Democrats in the South Carolina Primary. Young people almost tripled their turnout numbers from 2004 and almost doubled the turnout numbers of young Republicans.
“Young people in South Carolina continued to carry the torch of this generation,” said Jane Fleming Kleeb, Executive Director of the Young Voter PAC. “While the race for President turned to gender and race this past week, young voters focused on turning out in high numbers and they represented strong at the polls for Democrats.”
Young people are successfully breaking through race and gender boxes that their parents and grandparents first faced and fought against. Barack Obama got over 50% of the young white vote, the only non-black age group to overwhelmingly vote for Obama. Young Democratic voters were once again decisive with their choice. Over 67% voted for Barack Obama versus on the Republican side the vote was split among Huckabee and McCain (35% vs. 28%). A generational divide also continues, while 67% of young people vote for Obama only 32% of 65 and older voted did and the majority of that older age group, 40%, went for Clinton.
Pundits and Democratic insiders are beginning to take notice of young Democratic voters as a powerful voting bloc. Once the results were in for the South Carolina primary, Tim Russert on MSNBC noted, “If you are going to be a successful candidate in November as a Democratic candidate you cannot win with just hard core white Democratic voters. You need young voters to come into the Democratic fold to transform states like Florida…or Ohio. You need to broaden the base of the Democratic Party.”
Initial Youth Vote Statistics from South Carolina*:
Young people were 9% of the overall Democratic primary vote in 2004 and increased that to 14% in 2008.
Young Democrats continue to outnumber young Republicans at the polls continuing a trend in every state since Iowa.
Obama continued to secure the youth vote getting 67% of the overall youth vote, the largest percentage of voters among all ages (i.e. other ages broke down for Obama as follows, 62% of 30-44, 55% of 45-49, 38% 60 and older).
In raw numbers, there were 291,000 overall Democratic voters, of which 26,000 were young people in the 2004 SC primary. Compared to 2008, the overall number rose to 507,352 voters of all ages and 74,245 young people voting in the Democratic primary, young people almost tripled their 2004 turnout numbers.
As a comparison to Republicans, their total was 442,918 and only 44,291 young people showed up, a decrease from the last Republican primary when over 55,763 showed up to vote.
*Numbers cited in the release come from CNN exit polls and CIRCLE, a respected source on young voter data.
Press Contact: Jane Fleming Kleeb, jane@youngvoterpac.org, 202-445-5263
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