IOP Study: Obama leads among youth; Clinton leads among women; and Edwards who?
The spring 2007 Harvard IOP survey provides us with a snap shot of some early impressions young people have of the 2008 elections. The poll was conducted online by Harris Interactive. They surveyed a large sample; however these are individuals that have opted into Harris Interactive for online polling for their demographic. Don’t get me wrong, this is a step in the right direction, as IOP used to conduct these studies by conducting phone surveys.
Young people (42%) say they will definitely vote in a 2008 primary or caucus and are interested in volunteering (52%) for a presidential campaign if they are provided with an opportunity. I hope this is the case. It will be interesting to see if any of the presidential campaigns actually invest in voter registration and GOTV efforts. Campaigns would have to tailor their communications to young people and to the caucus and primary rules for each state. For example, in the earlier primary states college students could be encouraged to request an absentee ballot during Thanksgiving Break or Winter Vacation. It would be smart (and a necessity) for all campaigns to have a youth GOTV strategy for the primary that is aware of college schedules.
Party Affiliation and Candidate Ranks:
The Edwards numbers were a little surprising, as he has been building a national network of young people through his One Corps. I was also surprised by Obama’s significant lead over Clinton among college students. I don’t think Obama has a lock on the youth vote. Senator Clinton has a window through the summer and fall to define and introduce herself to young voters. I believe young people (being one) don’t have the love or hate position toward Senator Clinton that is often seen throughout the adult population. Many young voters were born around the time Gov. Dukakis ran for president, were in kindergarten during Hillary’s healthcare fight, and were in 4th or 5th grade during the impeachment witch hunt.
2004 Democratic Primary Youth Facts:
In the states where there were exit polls in 2004, approximately 749,000 young people (age 18-29) voted in the 2004 Democratic primaries. Youth turnout was 9.84 in 2000 and 9.85 in 2004. The number of young voters in Democratic primaries increased in IA, DE, OK and MD. The number of young voters decreased in CA, CT, NY, and RI.
More on the poll - Young people agree (61%) that basic health insurance is a RIGHT for all people and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide it. They believe (53%) that religious values should NOT play a more important role in government. Young people also have NOT discussed with their friends (82%) the genocide in Darfur in the last few weeks and are NOT sure (54%) that the U.S, should do more in Darfur.
Gender and Race Preferences:
What do you think?
2008 Youth Vote in Context
The following charts and graphs are meant to contextualize the unique role that young voters played in the 2008 election, and their increasingly important role in a winning electoral coalition:
2008 Youth Electoral Map

2004 Youth Electoral Map

Youth Vote Partisan Advantage: 2000 - 2008

Youth Vote Historical Support: 1976 - 2008

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Darfur and Voter Reg
A couple things.
I think that the campaigns will for sure invest in GOTV. At least at the presidential level. There is a growing awareness that this is a key voting block for the Democrats. How big a budget the youth outreach programs of the campaigns receive and how much control they have over youth messaging are the real questions, I think.
I wouldn't look to see registration efforts except insofar as they are part of other tactics - listening canvasses and supporter identification. Getting people to vote early and via absentee is definitely a tactic to look for, though not one that applies in caucus states. Registration might turn up as part of that strategy. But for sure GOTV will be done - that's what its all about.
I was interested in the low-level of support for Darfur as an issue.
There are contradictory findings - and some methodology problems - in how the IOP handled the Darfur issue. On their website, IOP is promoting Darfur as the #2 policy issue of young voters, but it's a bullshit claim. They only got that result because in one question, the survey offered respondents a limited choice of potential foreign policy subjects, of which Darfur was one of five possible policies. In more open-ended questions on policy, Darfur never emerged as an issue, and as you point out, most young voters don't really think about or have a policy opinion on the issue at all.
This strikes me as fairly significant. Darfur is a pretty big issue on FaceBook and MySpace - as those things go - and it gets a lot of attention in alt-dailies like AlterNet and among college activists. But it doesn't seem to resonate as an issue outside that limited sphere of youth activism. It's not a movement building issue (sorry for the cold-hard political calculus; I'm not making a moral judgment).
I'm not sure what you are saying here re: primary turnout, could you clarify?
GOTV and Darfur
Thanks Mike. It was a typo and I fixed it. Two sentences were accidently combined while making edits to the post. Those percentages represent the youth vote turnout in the Dem Primaries that had exit polls in 2004 and 2000.
I would advise the campaigns to have a registration/GOTV effort as a component of their youth field/grassroots strategy. Ideally these efforts would be implemented by a local organization or campus group affiliated with the campaign such as “Students for Hillary†or “Young People for Obama†etc… This is critical, as most non-profit groups will not be focusing their registration drives (due to funding limitations) until after the primary season. As you have written on this blog, the sharp increase in the youth vote in 2004 and 2006 is largely attributed to the millions of dollars spent by these non-profit groups.
I agree with your analysis on the Darfur findings. IOP is trying to make their poll relevant. Darfur is a moral issue, but fixing it in terms of policy and politics is complicated. I think our generation has a universal understanding that what happened and what is still occurring is messed up and needs to be fixed etc… However we aren’t discussing solutions and the media isn’t covering the issue in relation to its importance to us. I don’t think our generation has a firm grasp (I know I don’t) on how to fix Darfur. It is not like the U.S. is going to pull 60k troops out of Iraq and then send 10k troops to Darfur. The only realistic solution I have heard from my peers is for the United States to push the issue through the United Nations and force Sudan to accept a U.N. Peace Keeping Force to feed, protect, and provide medical help to the people.
Definitely some interesting
Definitely some interesting numbers. I agree that younger voters don’t have the same love-her-or-hate-her thing toward Clinton, but I think a lot of young people do see her as a member of an old guard of Democrats whose time has passed…
I was surprised that Clinton had such a strong lead among Hispanics.
Richardson and Latinos
Agreed. Where’s Richardson in all this? Why isn’t he picking up the Hispanic vote? Is it purely based on name recognition?
Richardson IOP Poll Findings
I hope this helps. Hispanic youth represented 17% of the poll (19% were Non-College and 11% were 4-Year College). Half of young Hispanics favored Senator Clinton over Senator Obama (50%-21%).
In the poll young people were asked to pick their first and second choice for President in 2008. Below are the results for Gov. Richardson:
-First Choice: 1% Total (1% Non-College; 2% 4-Year College)
-Second Choice: 5% Total (7% Non-College; 1% 4-Year College)