What Yesterday Says About Young Voters

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sent by sarahkatheryn since 17 days 19 hours 48 minutes, published about 17 days 16 hours 56 minutes
Watching election returns last night proved to be a very interesting evening. What became consistent was the impact of the lack of outreach on the youth segment of the electorate and the diminished rate of enthusiasm. In Virginia “Only 1,973,868 of a total 4,955,755 voters participated in the gubernatorial race — “a miniscule number when you consider there were 3.7 million voters in the 2008 election,” said Isaac Wood, assistant communications director at the University Center for Politics… He added that generally one-third of Virginia voters in presidential elections choose not to participate in gubernatorial elections, and that, as such, yesterday’s voter turnout was even lower than usual.” One difference this year than in 2008 was young voters had a candidate at the top of the ticket who actively sought their vote. This isn’t generally the standard in other elections, despite our efforts to teach candidates otherwise. Outreach is so important, asking young people for their vote is key, and peer to peer outreach is a must. All of these things happened nation wide in 2008, in large part because the Obama campaign placed a high importance on getting out the vote for young people.
tags: young voters, election, campaign
8 commentscategory: Elections karma: 153

comments

  1. #1    Right, because it's NEVER about the actual policies and it's always about PR. The product may be bad, but that doesn't mean you can't sell it to the young people. Sugar it up and sell, sell, sell.
    written by epppie since 17 days 19 hours 41 minutesepppie
  2. #2    Not for young voters, they don't vote for a party they vote for candidates and issues, consistently the candidate that does the most outreach and communicates the most to young voters gets the youth vote
    written by sarahkatheryn since 17 days 19 hours 37 minutessarahkatheryn
  3. #3    I agree. It takes a ton of effort to reach young voters and get a commitment from them. I place a fair amount of blame on the DNC for not nourishing these voters after the national election. Young voters need hoopla to get excited about. They're in school now so the audience is captive. What is the DNC doing about it?
    written by NewsSophisticate since 17 days 18 hours 56 minutesNewsSophisticate
  4. #4    The dems should have made a huge effort in these two races to take air out the GOP's predictable use of victories as a rallying cry, and an argument that this signifies a national rebuke of the Left, Obama, and their massive push to turn the U.S. into the Fascistic Commune of Socialism.
    written by colinjames since 17 days 18 hours 13 minutescolinjames
  5. #5    I don't remember voting in such an off-year election till I was into my thirties -- today's (pre-30s)youth can be different and certainly make a difference. But they still have to be kept relevant, informed, and whipped up to go vote and make that difference.
    written by RicKelis since 17 days 17 hours 58 minutesRicKelis
  6. #6    This has nothing to do with outreach.

    And this has nothing to do with the lame pundits and consultants trying to hustle Dimocrap bucks to conduct outreach campaigns.

    This has to do with broken promises. Endless broken promises from banking to jobs to military to transparency to accountability to health care.
    written by Mike5000 since 17 days 11 hours 44 minutesMike5000
  7. #7    turnout is key. Promise all you want...if turnout doesn't beat the turnout of the opposing party you're left with nada. The dems failed to 'turnout' their citizens (note...not base, their citizens). The dems lacked turnout. They didn't get their people out. This is a democrat loss on terms of failing to get the masses riled. The Teabaggers do...why can't we?
    written by NewsSophisticate since 16 days 13 hours 13 minutesNewsSophisticate
  8. #8    "why can't we?"

    Because youth no longer believe Dimocrap promises. Obama got one free ride. He won't get another. He had a choice whether to keep his promises or sell out. He sold out. He doesn't get a do over.
    written by Mike5000 since 16 days 10 hours 1 minuteMike5000
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