The Youth Vote Recap: A Q+A

Prior to Barack Obama's historic win earlier this month, many pundits predicted that this could be the year of the youth vote (actually, every election for the last 12 years has been the year of the youth vote, but this one was really going to be it). So what were the results of those predictions.

Q: After months of polls that had youth support for Barack Obama somewhere between 50 and 60 percent, did young people actually end up voting overwhelmingly for Obama?

A: Yes. Young voters favored Obama by an overwhelming 66-31 percent margin, which may have played a crucial role in Obama's victory. The president-elect didn't carry any other age demographic by nearly as big a margin.

Q: Was there a surge in the number of young people who voted?

A: Yes and no. Many more young people voted in this election than in 2004 — an estimated 3.4 million more, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Twenty-three million Americans under age 30 voted, an increase in youth turnout of at least 11 percentage points. However, young voters accounted for only around 18 percent of the electorate, which did not represent a major increase over the 2004 election.

Q: So, how much credit should we give young voters for Obama's victory.

A: According to experts, plenty. John Della Volpe, the director of polling for Harvard University's Institute of Politics, told MSNBC that the youth vote turned "states that Obama would have lost or barely won into more comfortable margins." Della Volpe continued: "Consistently throughout the country in key swing states, Obama is outperforming John Kerry's performance (with young voters) from four years ago by two to three times the margin. In many states, the only significant electorate that Obama is winning is young people."

Q: Does this mean youth voters are now as engaged as older voters?

A: Not quite. Voters over age 30 still have a considerably higher turnout than voters under age 30. This has also been true historically; according to CIRCLE, 57 percent of eligible youth voters voted in 2004. That was their highest total since 1972, but it was still far less than the 75 percent of eligible voters age 30 and over that turned out.