I wonder how much that MySpace voter registration push had to do with it?  Seems like that could be a reasonable source of young voter enthusiasm.  Being quite a political junkie myself for sometime I have been registered and participating since 18 (now 20).. but I know even on my campus there was a large push for voter registration.. oh and not even just MySpace.  

There are many political based groups on facebook.  Seems like new technologies have tuned my peers into the obligation of making a statement and  participating in elections.

Also I have many friends in Iraq, and I know people who have siblings,friends etc.. (who are young) come back from Iraq injured.  This war is hitting home for our youth possibly fueling the upward trend in young voters.

Up until about 5 years ago I used to work with high school age males as a youth organization leader (a well-known conservative oriented group).  These guys were very politically savvy even at that point, and very liberal.  I'm not surprised to see these numbers, and I trust this generation much more to make sane decisions than I trust my own GenX (i.e. lambs to slaughter).

One lack of savviness I should pass on though, few of these guys believed that rascism existed anymore.   (They attended HS is a liberal U-town.)  I suspect they've learned better since then, but I think their naivete is hopeful, because their school was very integrated and yet apparently color blind.

Comment he just made when I read some of this post to him: "Jon Stewart is making our inroads for us."

He might have something there...

I'm really proud of the Young Democrats of America (YDA) on this stuff.  
They've done an amazing job the last 3 cycles (04, 05 gov races, and now '06) and they're just getting stronger.  Their new website www.yda.org also rocks.  

I know here in Nebraska the young democrats (www.nebraskayoungdemocrats.org) are the driving force for change and for the kind of upset candidates we've had here like Scott Kleeb and Jim Esch.  

If you look at the youth mobilization projects that CIRCLE studied, such as the Student PIRGs' New Voters Project (http://www.newvotersproject.org), the thing that drove big voter turnout was good old-fashioned grassroots outreach - peer-to-peer phonebanking, canvassing, etc.  Most campaigns don't put any energy into doing this kind of basic peer-to-peer GOTV work targeted at young voters.  Hopefully these compelling new numbers from CIRCLE will convince campaigns and candidates to start putting resources into building a youth base.

While the national polls showed youth skewing toward the Dems yesterday, neither party has youth locked up, not by a long shot.  Most of the polling by CIRCLE and other groups shows that young voters mostly lack a strong party attachment, so they're very much up for grabs.  And the state polls showed youth supporting GOP candidates in particular races.  Both parties are going to have to work for it if they want the youth vote.  (Of course, being with the New Voters Project, a non-partisan project, I've got no opinion on the matter either way.)

Obviously fascinating and hopeful statistics but there seems to be far more hidden than revealed.

Would have loved to see a breakdown by education, economic status, region and ethnicity.  

They liked their congressperson but not John Kerry? What was that about?

Do they understand that Al Gore's Social Security lockbox is absurd and nearly as destructive as Bush's monstrous privatization?  

So many questions.

I suspect that the forces of reaction represented in its fullest lethal form by Bush are nearly spent.  But that by itself does not lend substantial hope for the future.

Thanks for posting.

Best,  Terry

and we can. I learned a lot working in the field this election. One of the most important things I learned is that we miss out on a lot of young votes on election day. Why? Because many of these people are away at college, but registered to vote at their parents' home. We need to make an aggressive push in 2008 to put absentee ballots in their hands well in advance of the election.

Persons aged 18-22 who are listed as registered at the same address as their parent are very likely (I'd guess 75%) to be college students not actually living with their parent. All registered Democrats (or unaffiliateds in a household with a registered Democrat) in this group should be sent applications for absentee ballots well in advance of the election.

Call the parents ahead of time, ask for the voter's contact information at school, tell them we wan to make sure their son or daughter does not have to take time away from their studies to vote. Parents will appreciate that! Then send them an absentee application and follow up with them.

This would not be difficult to do but would likely net us thousands of votes in close races.

[The same applies to the elderly. Every registered Democrat over the age of 75 should be encouraged to vote absentee. We shouldn't have to try to drag infirmed 85 year-old ladies to the polls at 7:00 PM on election day.]

Rock the Vote has some more exit polling on this in Rolling Stone.

this wave will only grow and hold steady until 2020.

Obama is the youth candidate, a political rock star. The Michael Jordan of politics.

I can hardly wait for the same process to energize women a group.  I think that 2008 will be a test for those that want to push the process.