Florida, the Youth Vote, and Rudy 9iu11ani

Today is the Florida Primary. Mostly this will be a Republican affair, with Romney and McCain vying for the momentum and bragging rights to usher them into the GOP nomination, but 9u11iani is also making a last stand in the state by forgoing the NYC sunbirds and retirees that are his base and appealing instead to young Floridians.

There are two problems with that strategy - Florida is one of the only states in 2006 that actually saw a decline in youth turnout, and there are more Democratic youth than Republican youth in the state. According to CIRCLE, even though overall turnout among young voters rose by 3% in 2006, turnout in Florida fell by 5%, and young voters made up only 8% of the Florida electorate, a decrease from 9% in 2002. Also working against 9ui11ani is the fact that 38% of young Floridians identified as Democrats in 2006, vs 35% Republican, a gap that has likely increased since the midterms.

In the race for the Democratic nomination, Florida is something of a controversial state. Much like Michigan, the DNC stripped Florida of its delegates after the state moved up it's primary in a bid for more influence over the nominating process. Since then, the Democratic candidates swore-off campaigning in the state. Without targeted outreach by the campaigns, it's unlikely that the youth vote will increase its turnout in substantial numbers. I'm actually going to guess that while turnout overall will increase, we won't see huge turnout increases among 18 - 29 year olds tonight like we did in some other states. Who really knows, though. Florida is a hugely contested battleground state, and maybe Floridians will motivate themselves this time around.

Turnout certainly can't get any worse than the baseline numbers from 2004. Last cycle, young voters made up only 6% of the primary electorate. It should be noted, however, that the 2004 Florida primary occurred when 80% of all Florida students were on spring break.

As of now, the Florida delegates won't be seated at the convention, but should we head towards a brokered convention, I expect both the Clinton and Obama camps will start to play hardball on the issue. At that point, every delegate will count. Should the Florida delegation actually be seated at a brokered convention, low young-voter turnout today would be bad news for Obama in August. He needs every young voter possible to go to the polls to cut into Clinton's delegate count.