Democracy Corps: Youth for the Win!

Posted by Mike Connery, AlterNet at 9:42 AM on May 6, 2008.

Democracy Corp has issued a new poll of young voters: Youth for the Win (pd). The polls, conducted over landline, cellphone, and via the internet, treads a lot of old ground and I won't rehash it all here, but I do want to pull out a few interesting bits that put hard numbers to current memes about youth engagement and mark out distinctions that have thus far been overlooked.

First, some new stats on increased participation:

In early 2008 Democratic primaries, young people increased their participation by an astonishing 88 percent. Republican involvement also improved, though far less dramatically (by 7 percent).

This is great news for the Democrats. As the following graph illustrates, this lopsided increase in participation translates into a huge partisan advantage at the ballot box. The Democrats now have an advantage among young voters not seen in years, and potentially not since 1992:

The poll provides some interesting context as to what criteria these new voters are using to determine how to cast their ballots. To a much greater degree than among Obama supporters, it appears that Clinton supporters are engaging in identity politics. That makes sense. These are Millennials, and they are supposed to be a generation that rejects the identity politics and culture war frames of the past. Add on to that the fact that Sen. Obama is making a specific appeal to leave behind identity politics and it stands to reason that his supporters would not describe their support or engagement in those terms.

Even so, I'm a little surprised to see the numbers so high on the part of Sen. Clinton's supporters. Perhaps Clinton's supporters are those few of the younger generation who side with older feminists on the issue of the need to elect a woman President? If so, this seems to turn on its head the meme that Obama voters are casting their ballots based on the person(ality), not the issues. To the contrary, it would appear as if it is Clinton voters who are most likely to fit that description.

It's worth noting that this is the second poll to suggest that the cult of personality meme dogging Obama supporters is off-base. A Rock the Vote showed similar findings disputing that claim back in February.

I've said this before, but in light of yesterday's post about Facebook "Jumping the Shark," I thought it worth saying yet again - social networks are not the killer app for reaching young people, and the Democracy Corps poll underscores this. Yes, social networks can enable young people to do amazing things and compete in the political marketplace against much bigger players, but they are not a mass-marketing tool for for campaigns to reach young people.

When it comes to reaching young people online, it's important to remember that "internet" does not = "social networks." The internet is a pretty big place, and major content providers like Google News, CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream news sites get a lot of traffic from young people. Attaining earned media coverage on those sites - and making sure that coverage is at times youth-oriented - can go a long way in spreading a campaign message among Millennials.

Where social networks come into play is in organizing die-hard supporters and leveraging the most gain out of their involvement (see: 2006 immigrant rallies; Students for Barack Obama). As Colin Delaney of ePolitics notes, this is not a mass media strategy. It is a much more time and resource intensive peer-to-peer strategy. It is just as important, and at times intensely more powerful than a mass-media strategy, but it is a distinct tool in the organizers toolbox and should be regarded as such.

Finally, the poll makes clear that while the Internet is a very important tool and public information space, it is still just one of a few places where campaigns can reach a mass-market youth audience. It is not the only one by any means. Local and national television still play a significant role in informing and influencing young people, which means that campaigns need to talk about youth issues and to young people at their events on the stump. That kind of earned media gets carried on broadcast and cable networks where it is watched by a significant number young people who will then talk to their friends.

Tagged as: youth, millennials, polling, 2008 election

Michael Connery is the author of Youth to Power: How Today's Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow's Progressive Majority. He blogs about progressive youth organizing at Future Majority and is an adviser to a number of progressive youth organizations.