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Top story in yesterday’s Rocky Mountain News was all about a new report issued on who did and didn’t vote in the Nov. 2004 election. The article is titled ’04 Vote Brought Out Young:
…The census survey found the number of Colorado voters aged 18 to 24 rose from 84,000 in 2000 to 212,000 in 2004. The percentage of all young residents who cast ballots rose from 21 percent in 2000 to 44 percent in 2004, on a par with national figures of 17 percent and 45 percent respectively.
While a mid-40%s turnout is by no means stellar, it does show that all the attention spent trying to get young people the polls paid off. Remember, according to the now infamous exit polls, the only age demographic group to vote for Kerry was the kids. By 10 points, the largest spread out of any age group.
I bring this the light to remind us all that the kids did show up to vote in 2004. Sure, they didn’t vote at the 71% rate the article says white males did, but don’t let anyone tell you the youth vote wasn’t there for Kerry. If you take all the people who voted, the youth vote took the same percentage slice of the pie, only because every other age demographic group (which are much larger in size) grew too. What’s important to watch is the rate of voter-turnout increase comparing a demographics group over each cycle.
The past election showed the youth, when engaged, will to interest, and will vote. 2004 must be the turning point for the way the Democratic Party engages the youth vote. What we did last was good. If we hadn’t, Bush would have “won” by an even larger margin. I know next time we can do it better.
This is especially important in Colorado, a state with a growing population and will be an even bigger battleground in ’08 then it was in ’04. People who vote once are much more likely to vote again. Also if we can get ’em to vote Dem now, we have a much better chance of them voting Dem in the future.
There was one not-so-good point to show:
Sigh. If we could get black adults to the polls as much as whites, we could add a couple million votes nationally. This shows that Dean is right by saying the Democratic outreach to blacks needs to be improved.
Just keep Katherine Harris away from the voter rolls.
front-paged @ jScoop – a new blog communinty in need of passionate people. Stop by, join, and blog!