January 7, 2008
Appetite for Change Finally Draws Young Voters to the Polls
by Joe Garofoli
San Francisco Chronicle
For more than three decades, it was the hollowest of presidential campaign promises: "And we're going to get out the youth vote!" Yeah, right. Politicians rarely talked about the issues that mattered to young people, and the under-30 crowd returned the favor by not voting.
Young people did show up four years ago - to vote against George W. Bush. But on Thursday, they showed up in record numbers to vote for somebody, helping to propel Sen. Barack Obama to victory in the Iowa Democratic caucuses.
They showed that appealing to the under-30 vote doesn't have to be a hollow promise for candidates who know how to translate their online love into real-world votes.
The number of under-30 Iowa caucus-goers tripled compared with 2004 , and more than 57 percent of young Democratic voters supported Obama. Exit polls found 22 percent of the nearly 239,000 Democratic voters were under 30. GOP caucus winner Mike Huckabee snagged 40 percent of the Republican youth vote, according to an MSNBC exit poll, roughly double his closest competitor. However, only 11 percent of the GOP's estimated 116,000 caucus voters were under 30; 38 percent were over 60.
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