Youth Voter Turnout Up, But Fails to Break '72 Record

The big news about the youth vote today, of course, is that those aged 18-29 went 2-1 (66% to 32%) for Barack Obama. The split in the overall vote for Obama was just 52% to 46%. This difference in presidential choice by age is unprecedented. From 1976 through 2004, the gap was only 1.8 percentage points, with young voters supporting the same candidate as older voters in most elections.

The somewhat heartening news is that youth voters in California were the only demographic to vote against the unAmerican Proposition 8, which means the foes of equal rights are going to lose in the long run. Not at all soothing for those who may not be able to exercise their full rights for a decade or two, but better than the alternative. Moreover, maybe young people will be able to educate or shame their elders into wising up in this matter.

To demonstrate just how startling the youth vote divergence was on Tuesday, here is the Democratic presidential candidate's share of the youth vote (based on exit polls) vs. the Democrat's share of the total popular vote for the past nine elections:

        ^{Youth   Voters Overall}
1976  51%     50%
1980  44%     41%
1984  40%     40.4%
1988  47%     45.5%
1992  43%     42.9%
1996  53%     49.2%
2000  48%     48.3%
2004  54%     48.1%
2008  66%     52%

However, one of the continuing themes this year (one that skeptical long-time observers have heard a few times before) is that this would be a blow-out election for the youth vote, surpassing, perhaps far surpassing, the record turnout of young voters that occurred in 1972, the first year 18-year-olds could cast ballots in a presidential election.

Until we get closer to having all the ballots counted for the 2008 election, we won't have a good handle on how many young citizens actually voted. That will surely be days, possibly weeks, from now. For the moment, two things are apparent. The numbers and percentages of voter-eligible youth who cast ballots were up, continuing a welcome trend that started four years ago. But young voters failed to beat the record percentage their predecessors set in 1972.

Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement is the go-to place for in-depth information about the youth vote. Today, CIRCLE preliminarily estimated that 21.6 million to 23.9 million voters ages 18-29 turned out for this election. That's based on a possible range of 120 million to 133 million turnout of all voters. We're at the lower end of that estimate now, and nobody knows for sure how many votes are left to count.

Whatever the case, the increase of young voters is at least 2.2 million over the numbers for 2004, which was a year of significant increase itself.

CIRCLE projects the youth voter turnout will be between 49.3% and 54.5%, an increase of 1 to 6 percentage points over CIRCLE’s estimate based on the 2004 exit polls. The 2004 election was a strong one for youth turnout, reversing a long history of decline. If we compare 2008 with 2000, the increase in youth turnout is between 8 and 13 percentage points. CIRCLE will replace projections with actual vote counts once most precincts have reported, including absentee ballots. Depending on the final vote tally, this year’s youth turnout could be the second highest since 1972 (55.4%) [My boldface - MB]

The recent turnout percentages and numbers for youth voters: 1996 - 37% (14.5 million); 2000 - 41% (16.2 million); 2004 - 48% (19.4 million).  

It should be noted that the voter turnout of those ages 18-24 is always at least slightly lower than of those ages 18-29.  

Calculating the youth vote always results in no more than an estimate because not all states record age data for voters in all states. CIRCLE thus relies on surveys to estimate youth turnout, those being the National Exit Polls conducted by Edison/Mitofsky and the Census Bureau’s November Current Population Survey (CPS).

Right after the election, exit polls are the only data source available for making the youth voter estimates. But exit polls are limited because some voters refuse to answer them and surveys at polling places don't take into account early or absentee voters. The CPS data are better. Every year, the Census Bureau samples more than 50,000 Americans, asking about voting participation, registration, citizenship, and other background factors. This survey is more extensive than the exit polls, but it also has limitations. For instance, respondents may be more likely to say that they voted even if they did not. Whatever the value and limits, the Census data won't be available until 2009.