Obama owns the youth vote
I don't know that there's much you can draw from the primaries and caucuses held so far, in terms of how the Democratic nomination is going to play out nationally in the end. But there's at least one thing you can draw from them: there is a generational split in the Democratic party. By substantial margins, young Democratic primary voters have gone to Obama over Clinton and Edwards.
In Iowa, Obama won 57% of 17 to 29 year olds, and 42% of 30 to 44 year olds.
In New Hampshire, the data is also remarkable, with 60% of the 18 - 24 crowd supporting Obama. He also prevailed with the 30 to 39 year olds, with 43% of their vote. Clinton won in the 25 - 29 demographic, but only by 2 percentage points.
And according to this entrance poll, Obama won 59% of the 18 - 29 vote, and 46% of those 30 to 44 in Nevada.
If this trend continues across the country, that's great news for Obama. But it won't win him the nomination on its own - Clinton owns the over 45 vote. He's still got his work cut out for him.
Comments
yeah big deal about younger voters. consistently younger voters are on the wrong side of the issues (not my side). at the height of the vietnam war, younger voters were not majority anti-war and neither were younger voters majority anti-war in recent polls about Iraq. Younger voters favored Reagan and we all know how that turned out for us.
Oh wait, we don't. Last week Obama met with the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal and arguably praised Ronald Reagan.
"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not," he said, per ABC News' Sunlen Miller, describing Reagan as appealing to a sentiment that, "We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."
See Krugman's latest effort to clarify the issues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/opinion/21krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
So what if Obama wins younger voters and wins the election. I still don't think he's the best candidate because he knows where he's from, but does he know where he and the country are going?
Posted by: Andrew | January 21, 2008 1:28 PM