A New Breed of Voters Ready & Waiting: "The Millennial Generation"

March 29, 2008

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I suppose one the reasons I find myself so enamored with all of the “Millennial Generation” talk, which has increased quite a bit over the past six months, could simply be because it’s an interesting topic, one that is still fairly new and is still trying to be understood. Or my fascination with the “Millennial s” could be rooted in the fact that I am a “Millennial.” I am in fact part of the early 20 something year old demographic who cannot live without my laptop and iPod, I am part of that group that is going to pick up slack for our older, more narrow minded, elders who “just can’t” vote for Obama, and most importantly, I am part of the group that actually knows what I am talking about when discussing government, policy initiatives, candidates, and everything else that is part of the political sphere in the United States. So get out of the way mom and dad, thanks for everything, but you had your chance in 2000 and then 2004, and well, we all know how that turned out.

The “youth vote” in America has long been the sought after, yet unachievable bloc which politicians have tried just about everything underneath the sun to sure up. From the “Get clean for Gene” gimmick in 1968, to the “Kids for Kerry” strikeout in 2004, the “youth vote” has succeeded in disappointing anyone and candidate naive enough to think that they would turn out in any significant numbers. That is of course, until now:

Try calling the Millennial Generation apathetic or ignorant, and you’ll get an earful from Molly Kawahata. The senior at Palo Alto’s Gunn High School and 11 teenage friends she met on the Facebook networking Web site are volunteering this weekend at the state’s Democratic Convention, which starts today in downtown San Jose.

Kawahata, whose candidate is Barack Obama, is part of a new generation of young people who have been turning out in record numbers in primaries and caucuses across the country. In seven states, including Iowa and Florida, the youth vote tripled from 2004.

Obama has been credited for much of the surge: He’s won youth votes by 60 percent to 70 percent in most of those states.

This is no joke either, the number of “Millennial’s” aka 18-26 year olds, who are voting, working, or just tuning in to the political happenings of today are at an all time high –and when I say high– I mean crushing the numbers from past election cycles. Look at California’s primary, the turnout of voters under 30 increased from 13% in 2000 to 19% this year. While Hillary Clinton won the state’s Democratic primary, she split the youth vote evenly with Obama.

That said, 2008 has the potential to set a new tone in the political landscape, one where the “youth vote” holds a sense of real electorate sway in choosing the nations next president. When analyzing the number of young voters who have turned out in consistently higher numbers for the past two election cycles, political scientists find themselves in agreement in speculation claiming that this trend will continue, with a possible push even higher come November:

“According to the Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics March 2007 survey, 71% of non-college young adults are registered to vote; and 85% of college students are registered to vote. Combined, a total of 75% of young adults are registered to vote. In June 2007, pollsters Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research found that 92% of eighteen-to twenty-nine-year olds said that they are almost certain” they will vote in 2008, which is only one percentage point shy of the 93% of all ages” who said they are almost certain” they will vote in 2008.

61% percent said that they would definitely vote in the general elections. And another 18% said that they would probably vote. Only 4% said that they were definitely not going to vote in the general elections.

Also noteworthy is the number of young American paying attention to the elections. At this point in the elections in 2004, only 35% of of Americans under the age of thirty were paying attention; today, that number is 65%.”

Another great illustration of the increasing youth vote can be seen in the graph below, in the comparisons of raw numbers, in ‘00, ‘02, ‘04 and ‘06.

Now let me take a minute here to share some information about the “Millennial Generation”, who are currently in the electorate (18-29 year olds). This generation of youth is large, very large, and in the new reality of close elections, they are a bloc that will play an important role in deciding elections in the next decade. Seventy-five million in 2006, the “Millennial Generation” is approaching the current size of the Baby Boom generation. According to the “Youth Vote” web-site, by the year 2015, the potential Millennial voters ages 18-38 years old will be one-third of the U.S. electorate:

The Millennial Generation is engaged in community service and politics, and becoming more so:

Millennials are more likely to have volunteered within the past year than any of the other three generations (Gen X, Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation).

In 2005, an all-time high of 83.2 percent of college freshmen reported that they volunteered at least occasionally during their high school senior year. 70.6 percent volunteered weekly.

Political awareness among college freshman is on the rise for the fifth consecutive year to its highest level in more than a decade: 36.4 percent considered keeping up with political affairs to be very important” or essential,” an increase from 28 percent in 2000.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of college students say they follow national political news closely. And 34 percent consider keeping up with politics to be very important” or essential,” an increase from 28 percent in 2000.

Now I understand these numbers are not completely up to day, being as though they only run into 2007, I still think they manage to relay the notion of just how big this wave could be onto the world of politics.

So who looks to benefit most from this tidal wave of political energy? If you guessed Barack Obama, you’re correct. Senator Barack Obama’s youth oriented campaign drew record numbers of youth voters (under 26) during the Iowa caucuses, and these first time voters gave him most of his margin of victory. This is a trend that kept up after Iowa, and remains stronger then ever today. For instance,take a look at Maryland’s youth vote, one of the states involved in the Potomac Primaries:

Obama (D - Ill.) swept three area primaries Tuesday and dominated the university’s student vote. He captured more than 83 percent of the total votes in the Democratic primary, with Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) placing second with 17 percent. Sen. John McCain led the Republican race with 63 percent of the vote.

The Illinois senator scored massive victories throughout the region, with wins in Maryland, Virgina and Washington, pulling ahead to his largest lead in the race so far.

All in all I really think, actually scratch that, I know, that the media is not giving the youth electorate much thought, and forget about the polls. How do Gallup, Pew, and NBC/WSJ get the majority of their data which makes up their weekly, bi-weekly, or daily polls? The answer is via telephone. I can honestly say that I do not know one person my age who has a land line phone, not one. So that forces me to believe this sizable voting demographic isn’t really represented in the polls we see on the nightly news.

This fact alone, I feel, is going to cause a “surprise” birthday party reaction from the mainstream media. I am not guaranteeing it, nor am I willing to predict specific numbers, but I will say that I really have a hunch that the “Millennial” voters will have quite an impact on the upcoming presidential election. Just watch, you’ll see.