POLITICS - Youth Vote and Obama's Re-Election

"Young Voters Played Critical Role in Obama Re-Election Despite Dip in Support" PBS Newshour 11/26/2012

Excerpt

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): Finally tonight, we turn to politics and a look at the impact of the youth vote in this year's presidential election. In 2008, young people went to the polls in record numbers, with 66 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds supporting President Obama, helping to sweep him to victory.

But, this year, the president's support among that age group dipped to 60 percent, although young voters proved much more critical to his re-election win.

That's the subject of a new analysis by the Pew Research Center. And we are joined now by Michael Dimock, one of the study's lead authors.

And, Michael, there were confident predictions before Election Day that youth was simply not engaged, not enthusiastic, and not going to show up on Election Day.

What really happened?

Significant excerpt

RAY SUAREZ: When we try to slice and dice the electorate, is there really a youth vote? Because every youth is something else? They come from their region, they come from their state. They're well-educated or not-so-well. They're high-income or low-income. They come from different racial and ethnic groups.

Is a youth voter more like another youth voter than they are like other Catholics, other Southerners?

MICHAEL DIMOCK, Pew Research Center: Right. No, it's true.

This is a diverse generation, as any generation is. Baby boomers were characterized as something, while they're very diverse.

All the generations have differences, but this generation really has a character that showed up early on, even before Obama came into the scene and energized people.

In the 2004 election, this was an engaged electorate that was already showing its Democratic leanings. And that's not just about personalities. It's about substance. They have somewhat different values about what they prioritize and what they think the government should be doing.

This is the one age group that wants the government to do more, whereas all the older age groups want the government to get out of their hair. This is the one generation that backs the health care reform and is much more liberal, not surprisingly, on some social issues like gay marriage or immigration.

Those fundamentals are part of the character of this generation. There's hardly uniform agreement within the generation, but it is a characteristic that really sets this age group apart.