Young Voters Elect Obama

Wow... I'm amazed and grinning from ear to ear. Young voters put Obama over the top in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado. Colorado - specifically, took out an incumbent Republican US Senator, and a conservative Representative as well as electing a very young Congressman in Boulder.



This will be the beginning of some amazing youth power in this country.

From the very very early traditionally unreliable exit polls we show young voters favor Obama 68 - 30% and make up 18% Share of the Electorate. By contrast - and this is in no way a competition or anything 65+ voters were 16% of the share.

Share numbers, however, are bad bad numbers to go by because they belittle the actual numbers and don't look at increases or decreases. So, while these are good numbers to look at early on, examining a share isn't where we should focus.

CIRCLE released data showing young voters are chose Obama by 38 percentage points - towards the upper end of all the polling we saw this year.

" Young voters preferred Obama

Young voters diverged sharply from the population as a whole, preferring Obama/Biden over McCain/Palin by 68% to 30% in the NEP. This is by far the highest share of the youth vote obtained by any candidate since exit polls began reporting results by age categories in 1976. In past elections from 1976 through 2004, young voters diverged by an average of only 1.8 percentage points from the popular vote as a whole. 2004 had set the previous record for an age gap."

This election was hands down won because of young voters who pushed major swing states over the top. Without them Obama would not have won Iowa and he wouldn't have won last night.