Florida: Youth Turnout Sans Obama

After putting out the question of Hillary's youth "victory" to a number of smart youth organizers, I'm getting a better picture of what I think happened in the state and how to interpret Florida youth turnout. First the final numbers from CIRCLE (pdf):

• 151,599 young voters participated in the Florida Democratic primary.
• They were 9 percent of the Democratic electorate, an increase of 3 percentage points from 2004, when young voters were 6 percent of the electorate.
• The actual turnout rate in the Democratic contest was 13 percent, up from 4 percent in 2000.
• Young Democrats once again out performed Young Republicans. 134,412 young voters participated in the more competitive Republican Primary, and they made up 7 percent of the Republican electorate.

The organizers I spoke to gave a number of reasons for Hillary's victory among young voters:

• Higher name ID
• Clinton's big lead among Latino voters
• Clinton spoke about Florida enough in the final week to have "virtually" campaigned in the state
• Clinton's blow-out lead discouraged Obama voters
• W/r/t to the Michigan comparison, there was a concerted effort in Michigan on behalf of "uncommitted." No such grassroots push existed in Florida for Obama

These are all plausible enough, and to be honest I don't think we can get much more clarity at this point.

There are a few things Florida does tell us, though. Tony Cani, the Political Director of YDA dragged me out of the horse-race narrative I've sunk into, and pointed out that Florida tells us a lot about what's going on with the youth vote sans the Obama campaign.

Even though Obama is capitalizing on a huge wave of youth support, increased voter turnout among youth was occurring even before his campaign. Obama may be riding the youth wave, and he is certainly amplifying it, but in no way did he create it. It existed before him, as we saw in 2004 and 2006. As I noted above, youth turnout in Florida yesterday tripled over turnout rates for 2000, without any outreach by the campaigns, and it did so more for the Democrats than the Republicans.

Second, this offers further proof of what youth vote advocates have been saying for literally years now: reaching out to young voters works. In all the states where the campaigns have made an effort, youth turnout has risen dramatically, nowhere more so than in Iowa and New Hampshire where the campaigns invested the most effort. Putting resources into the youth vote works. That's a lesson for all Democratic campaigns - national, state and local - to take away from yesterday's results.