Cross posted at Future Majority

The media life of the CTYD YouTube video was informative to watch.  It's the first time (that I can think of) that a democratic youth operation successfully used new media and the blogs to get out a story that didn't have a coordinated national push already behind it.

The story started as a press release about a CT House vote, leaked into a local media outlet, became a YouTube video, found its way into more local media including a CT blog, became a blog topic here on Future Majority, got diaried at the Daily Kos where it was front paged, and then traveled into more national blogs.  What could have been a one day local story was potentially seen by a large swath of online progressives and CT residents, and it worked because CT Young Dems delivered a creative message and also because the story cycled through the local and national blogs.  It's a model to replicate, and has been promoted as such both on Future Majority and on the Young Democrats Blog.

Crossposted at Future Majority Last week CIRCLE released a new fact sheet on youth voting in the 2006 election (PDF), and while many of the findings simply confirmed what earlier exit polling already revealed (i.e. increased youth voter turnout and a huge, about 2-1, advantage for Democrats in voting), the report contained one bit of information that really grabbed my attention:  

In addition to a shift in voting behavior, exit polls also indicate a change in political party identification among young voters. In 2004, regardless of age, voters were evenly split between the Republicans, Democrats and Independents. However, in 2006, young voters diverged from older voters with a sizable plurality of young voters reporting they were members of the Democratic Party. Forty-three percent of young voters identified as Democrats, 31% as Republican, and 26% as Independent

This six-percentage shift towards identification with the Democratic Party amongst young people is pretty significant, in my opinion.  This says to me that the cynical, and incorrect, notion that "there's no difference between the parties" is starting to subside, which could have huge long-term ramifications if Democrats were to focus on the issues facing this group and continue to push this idea into the dustbin of history. Given how little is being spent on the left to woo this demographic, let alone train members of the younger generation(s) to become political leaders, the number seems even more significant, but I can't help but think that more attention and a lot more financial resources would lead an even larger number of young people to identify as Dems. It appears to me, at this point and time, that we may never know. Despite all of the good news on the youth vote front, I haven't seen any evidence that the larger financial backers of progressive causes have taken notice.

Just a few quick updates on youth vote turnout and the impact that we had as a group.

Via an analysis in the New York Times, its apparent that this year's turnout increase was driven primarily by young voters:

The overall turnout rate, reflecting a percentage of voting age population, was 40.4 percent, compared with 39.7 percent in 2002, according to an Associated Press vote count and an analysis by American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

So the overall turnout rate increased by less than 1%, yet young voter turnout rate rose by 4% over 2002 levels.  So not only did the kids  turnout, and break democratic (as my graph shows), but they also drove the overall increase that we saw in the electorate as a whole.  

Cross-posted at Future Majority.

I've had time to sift through what data is available from Young Voter Strategies and CIRCLE.  The bottom line is this - youth turnout increased for the third straight year, and millenials chose Democrats over Republicans by 22 percentage points (60%-38%) - more than double any other age demographic.

Democratic Preference by Age Demographic

Cross-posted at Future Majority

Today, we all head to the polls to choose our representatives and hopefully change the direction of our country.  One voting block that is sure to play an important - and expanding - role in today's election is young voters.  

In 2004, the media completely botched the story about young voter turnout.  An article in the AP mistakenly reported young voters share of the electorate instead of the hard turnout numbers.  In 2004, youth turnout as a share of the electorate only rose 1-2% points due to an overall turnout increase of 4% among the voting population.  Young Voter strategies has more  on the  difference between share and turnout here. (pdf)

The result of this error was a complete dismissal of youth  turnout for  months, and a reinforcement in the minds of many politicians and the media that youth remained apathetic.  We know that's not true.  

Cross posted at Future Majority.

Finally getting around to reading this month's edition of Harpers, and I came across a great expose on the National Conservative Student Conference - The Kids Are Far Right: Hippie Hunting, Bunny Bashing, and the New Conservitism.  I'd link you to the article, but it's Harpers, so it's not online yet (if it will ever be).  

You can get all the creepy cultural details over at Mahablog.  I'd like to focus on the purely infrastructural revelations.

One of the biggest process/tactics stories of the 2006 election cycle is the rise of social networking as a campaign tool.  Candidates caught on to the fact that young voters are a demographic they need to be courting - particularly progressive, who currently have a natural advantage in this demographic -  and that social networks were the place to do that.

On November 8th and 9th, there will be plenty of stories about the role of social networking in the midterm elections.  If current predictions hold, most likely those stories will focus on how social networking played a key role in turning out young voters.  Hopefully for Democratic candidates.

But what have candidates really done with their social networking profiles, and what will they need to do in 2008 to take this campaign tool to the next level?

Cross-posted at Future Majority.

As I type this, the Harvard Institute of Politics is releasing the results of a new poll that will predict a record-shattering turnout on behalf of young voters in next week's midterm elections.  

The news looks great for Democrats, and great for the youth vote - which will receive added attention from politicians and perhaps put to rest the "apathetic youth" meme if these numbers bear out.

Right now only the press release (pdf) is available, but here are the major points that HIP will report: