Cognitive dissonance on youth vote & Obama


November 7th, 2008

In an election where it was predicted the youth vote would rise to prominancewe are left with two differing visions of the outcome.

From MSNBC
“Young voters not essential to Obama triumph

From US News & World Report

“Young Voters Powered Obama’s Victory While Shrugging Off Slacker Image”

Confused? So am I.

Marketwatch headlines 18-29 Voter Landslide Is A New Generation Flexing Their Activism in an election where the youth vote overwhelmingly went to Senator Barack Obama. This massive support from one sliver of the electorate would seem likely to sway the election right? Not so.

The aforementioned MSNBC article provides a state-by-state analysis showing that if the youth vote were removed from this years electorate only two states would have turned red. Those two states were not essential to bringing Obama to the 270 needed electoral votes. In the end the analysis shows the opposite for black voters who won Florida & Ohio for Obama. All the final numbers are still being looked at by all media outlets and researchers but the evidence seems clear that it was black voters and not youth who brought Obama to victory.

Before the election pundits and commentators claimed the election was shaping up to one where youth turnout would hit its highest note in history. Instead youth turnout stood at 54.5% just one point shy of 1972 the first election 18-20 year olds were allowed to vote thanks to the 26th amendment. The youth vote was far less than the 60.7% to 61.7% of the overall population estimated to have voted in the election. It should be noted that overall this number is within a point or so of 2004 turnout. The difference? About 1.3% of Republicans stayed home while Dems increased their voters by 2.6%.

So why the disconnect between the numbers and the articles? We can only guess but there sure are an awful lot of articles telling a much different tale.

Other headlines: Young voters shake things up, Young voters turnout in record numbers on Election Day, Young voters lifted Obama to Election victory, and so on…

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Posted in Election 2008 |

Viewing 1 Comment

    • ^
    • v
    So, now that the election is over… whose vote was most important?
    Throughout the election season, news organizations and political analysts talked non-stop about who would vote for whom. Would the black vote swing the election for Obama? Would woman that had supported Hillary Clinton be swayed by Sarah Palin’s presence on the Republican ticket? What about the youth vote?
    On election night, CBS devoted a pretty long segment to working class white voters in Ohio and how they had swung the election there to Barack Obama.
    But, no one seems to be able to agree on whose vote mattered most.
    MSN says youth voters were non-essential. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27582147/)
    U.S. News and World Report says they made all the difference. (http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-20...)
    I called Project Vote, a youth voting initiative that works with organizations like Rock the Vote to organize youth voters, and the spokeswoman I talked to said she thought discussion about how much the youth vote had meant was silly.
    “Of course I think the youth vote was important,” she said, “and the suggestion that it’s not is ridiculous. Every vote counts.”
    And I agree. Maybe the black vote made a bigger difference than the youth vote. But if the youth hadn’t voted, would it have been enough? For the media to suggest that some votes are more important than others is not only foolish in a society where many people already complain that their votes are meaningless, it’s untrue.
    Every opinion should matter, regardless of color, age or class. And each and every voting bloc contributed something to this election. According to the U.S. News and World Report article, 19 percent more young Americans voted than did in 2004. That percentage, whether or not it was the one that eventually tipped the election for Obama, is a remarkable one, and the media should treat it as such.
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