One immediate reaction to Election Day is that Barack Obama’s victory effectively shifted the balance of power in the White House. But a less-noticed lesson from the 2008 election is that it underscored the vast disparity between the two political parties in garnering support from young voters.
The youth, a notoriously unpredictable constituency in voter turnout, dashed to the polls in historically high numbers. And they leaned toward Obama overwhelmingly, by a ratio of greater than two-to-one, according to exit polls.
The President of the Indiana University College Democrats, Anna Strand, told me recently that her fellow students’ excitement over Barack Obama’s candidacy ultimately translated into Indiana Democrats’ high turnout for early voting. Obama’s narrow win in Indiana, a traditionally Republican state, is an object lesson in the potential for young voters to be a decisive voting bloc in an electoral battleground..
For Democrats, such a huge advantage among youth evidences the success of the party’s vigorous efforts to bolster its standing among college-aged voters. In particular, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi engineered a bold move to make Democratic principles resonant with young voters.
“Five years ago, I created our ‘30 Something’ working group, which consists of members of Congress under the age of 40 who have talked about issues that relate to young people through new media, on television through CSPAN, MTV, BET and other networks as well as in person on college campuses and at young professional organizations,” Speaker Pelosi, a Democrat from California, said in an e-mail message.
So the major political parties are pursuing starkly different goals in their youth outreach. Democratic leaders see their newfound dominance of the federal government as an opportunity to deliver the agenda they have promised, while the Republicans are stuck playing the catch-up game.
“We will continue to pass legislation that will help young people by making college more affordable, health care more accessible, helping stop global climate change and responsibly ending the war in Iraq,” Speaker Pelosi said in the e-mail message.
But Democrats’ control of both elected branches also means they are held more accountable for the nation’s destiny. The stakes are high: Democrats’ success in carrying out their promises could result in an insurmountable long-term advantage among young voters. But a failure to do so would raise doubts among the youth about whether they can actually trust their government.
Republicans acknowledge the need to establish a formidable presence on college campuses—something that Democrats have already accomplished. One step toward achieving that goal is to heighten education efforts.
“A lot of people are not aware of how government functions,” New York State Assemblyman David G. McDonough, a Republican, said in a telephone interview.
Mr. McDonough proposed a two-fold strategy: to more rigorously teach college students about government’s function and about core Republican principles.
At the same time, many Republicans have contemplated recalibrating their party’s image to better connect with the college population and the growing minority population.
“We have to have more divergence of the population involved,” Assemblyman McDonough told me. “The demographics are changing, and we plan to be changing with them.”
The newly shaped atmosphere of the competition to attract young voters will be tested in the 2012 presidential contest. It essentially signals the increasing electoral clout of the college population. And that is exactly the reason that students need to stay attuned to political affairs.
