Earlier today in
a breaking blue piece, I linked to
a USA Today article that showed turnout was down in 2006 from 2002 in every state that has held a primary so far. Clearly, turnout is down overall. However, that does not mean turnout id down among every demographic group. Look for two groups to buck the trend in particular.
First, young people:
In 2004, young people voted in the highest percentage they had since 1992, and in the third-highest percentage in the nine presidential elections since a constitutional amendment in 1971 lowered the voting age to 18.
In 2005, overall voter turnout declined in the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, except for the student-dense precincts with big voter turnout projects.
Because of numbers like this, political parties and campaigns this year are lavishing attention on a new generation of young voters. They are investing in staff, studying ways to use new technology and promoting legislation geared toward young people's interests. And while young people currently favor Democrats, analysts say they are not yet anchored long-term to any political party.
That last part is true. While Democrats currently have the edge among young voters (which I believe are defined as voters under 30), it hasn't been an edge for us long enough to solidify an entire generation (see
this useful discussion for more info, including
this comment in particular). The triple blowouts in the 1980's won a sizable majority of the late boomers for Republicans for a long time to come. If Democrats maintain their edge among the youth vote until 2012, that will be long enough, and Democrats might have solidified Generation Y for a long time to come. That could be a huge edge for several decades, since this seems to be a highly politicized generation.
In addition to the rising youth vote, the immigrant vote has been raising steadily over the past few cycles.
It looks as though we can expect those trends to continue in 2006:
Whatever action Congress may take, activists are pledging to mobilize 1 million new voters from newcomers to the USA: Hispanics, mostly, but also Koreans in Los Angeles, Hmong in Minnesota, Irish in New York City.
The "democracy summer" drive started July 1 by the We Are America Alliance offers voting and citizenship services to immigrants. The alliance estimates that the nation's immigrant population represents an untapped resource of 12.4 million potential new voters. According to a report prepared from U.S. government statistics and released last month by the alliance, they include: 9.4 million foreign-born residents eligible to become citizens; 1.9 million children of immigrants, ages 18-24, who have not yet registered to vote, and another 1.1 million children of immigrants who will become old enough to vote by the 2008 presidential election.
There is a key similarity between these two demographic groups: both have fluid partisan loyalties. While both may lean toward Democrats, those leanings are not guaranteed at all. I know that
NDN has done a lot of work to help positively brand Democrats within Latino communities, and I think this is a very good idea. Outside of building the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, I actually have a difficult time thinking of anything more important to the long-term future of progressives and Democrats than securing the partisan loyalties of emerging voting demographics. At a time when voter turnout continues to drop, the party and the movement that captures the loyalties of those very few groups who are actually starting to participate more in politics will govern for a long, long time.
