IOP Spring Survey - Participation and Social Networking

Cross posted at MyDD. Recommend it if you can, it helps build traffic for the site.

The Harvard Institute of Politics released their spring survey of young voters this week. The survey has a sample size of 2,923 young voters - defined as 18-24 year olds - and was roughly split 50/50 between college students and non-college youth. For reporting on the horse race, I'll refer you to this piece in The Hill and this piece by guest blogger Jason Fink, below.

Here's a run down on some of the more interesting findings that you won't see in the mainstream media reporting:

Youth Vote: Getting to the First of Many Thirds
I've written before about how the trends among young voters are encouraging for progressives, but we can't view the recent swing in progressive partisanship among young voters as a given. Some stats in the IOP spring survey continue to back that up.

79% of all 18-24 year olds (college and non-college) are either not sure or don't think that the direction of the country has changed as a result of Democrats taking control of Congress. Iraq is by far the most pressing issue among these young voters, with 27% of non-college and 35% of college respondents ranking it as their #1 concern. No other issues comes close to ranking as highly. We'll see if that remains true after the events at Virginia Tech and the Supreme Court's recent decision, but at the time of the poll, Iraq was the issue for Millennials, and Democrats are clearly not doing enough to convince these voters that the party can effect change and put the country back on track. That puts the youth vote up for grabs - maybe not in the Presidential race in '08, but certainly in down-ticket races and in future elections that aren't a direct referendum on the Bush Administration.

On participation in the primaries: 71% of non-college and 85% of college students said they are registered to vote, and 64% say they are likely to vote in a primary or caucus. It sounds great, but a whopping 55% aren't sure in which primary or caucus (Republican or Democrat) they will vote.

Two things might be happening here:

First, this could reflect a high level of uncertainty and confusion about the primary process. If true, that would be a predicator of low turnout among Millennials at the caucuses and early primary states. Obama's campaign has the most to lose in that scenario, and it will be interesting to see how his team educates young voters about the primary process. But here's the rub: 34% of respondents did say they would vote in the Democratic primary. So it's possible that the 55% figure reflects a high level of indecision among moderates and independents. That would be normal, but it would still be a pretty bad scene for the Obama campaign. Being able to build bridges across ideologies is great for our politics and could lead to a strong showing in the general election - even to an actual mandate for change once in office - but it doesn't necessarily get you primary votes.

New Media
Research has shown that young people will get involved if you ask us. The IOP survey confirms that, with more than half of all respondents stating they would be interested in volunteering for a campaign if provided with an opportunity. So what's the best way for campaigns to ask?

Despite the hype around social networking, 81% of college students and 86% of non college youth stated that email was still the best way to reach them. As for the social networks, 28% of college students and 34% of non college youth stated that MySpace is the best way to reach them, while 44% of college students and 22% of non college students preferred FaceBook outreach. I expect this ratio will change as campaigns establish best practices and really figure out how to use social networking to connect with supporters and translate that support into tangible results, but for now, campaigns need to be doing a whole lot more than just getting on social networks to reach young voters. This is just another instance in which we are reminded that young voters need all the other forms of contact that the campaigns lavish on "normal" voters - p2p contact, emails, etc.

The survey also questioned respondents about their use of social networking sites for political activism. What it found was a big split between political activity on FaceBook vs. MySpace. 34% of all respondents stated that they had promoted a political campaign or issue via FaceBook, but only 16% said the same about MySpace. Among the social network goliaths, FaceBook seems to be the network of choice for political activism. No doubt we're seeing a number of things at work here - the impact of mega groups like 1 Million Strong and higher rates of (internet) activism among college students than non-college youth being the most obvious. It probably also helps that FaceBook makes it easier than MySpace to find the "official" page of a candidate, and that their political features have been around longer and are better integrated into the FaceBook platform.

This too might change as campaigns figure out how best to leverage social networks beyond spamming massive friends lists. Though, with FaceBook naturally complementing basic ground tactics like building student voter files, and MySpace displaying a habit of shutting down innovation on its network, my money is on FaceBook to remain ahead in the online activism game.

Are we paying attention?
Finally, just to dig at Bill O'Reilly - here's another score for the stoned slacker brigades. According to the IOP poll, young voters aren't nearly as frivolous as the pundits would like to think. 55% of the survey respondents said that they had discussed U.S. politics with their friends in the last week and 56% stated they had discussed the 2008 election (66% among college students). In comparison, 53% said that they had discussed "celebrity gossip" and only 45% had discusses sports news. Not too shabby. With Anna Nicole running on cable news 24/7, I wonder how many adults could say the same.