Junior Super Tuesday Preview

Tomorrow is Junior Super Tuesday - Sen. Clinton's final firewall, if you believe it. In Texas, both campaigns are courting the growing latino youth vote, and in Ohio, Sen. Obama has indie rock stars pumping up his already uber-energized youth supporters. He may need that extra support if prediction of snow storms blanketing the state tomorrow turn out to be true.

Here's a quick look at the demographic breakdowns of the youth vote in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island. As per usual, expect youth turnout to be somewhere between the 2004 primary share of the electorate and the current share of eligible voters. If trends hold, somewhere about 4 - 5% higher than 2004 primary results is a good guess, though Ohio has been a highly targeted and competitive state in recent years and turnout might be slightly higher there.

Everyone is looking at Texas and Ohio as the make-or-break states for Clinton, and in both states she has a greater than usual advantage among young voters. Young latinos, who have been more likely to support her campaign that than of Sen. Obama, are 33% of the youth electorate in Texas, and young voters as a whole are almost one quarter of the electorate overall. Most polls are projecting a slight Obama win, but they are really all within the margin of error. Leveraging young latinos to chip away Obama's base might be Clinton's key to sneaking out a victory in the Lone Star state.

In Ohio, young voters are less likely than usual to be in college or hold a college degree. Non-college youth have been turning out in far fewer numbers than their college educated peers, but when they do turn out it has tended to be for Clinton, giving her a chance to rack up a higher than expected delegate count in the state.

So Clinton stands to do better in those two states among young voters than she normally does, but the question is does it matter? Most analysts are reporting that the delegate math doesn't favor her, and it's not clear at all that there's any successful path to the nomination at this point barring a massive revolt against Obama among the super delegates.

Warning - all the state named links are to pdf files.

Ohio

2004 Share of Primary Electorate: 9%
2008 Share of the Population: 21%
Total Youth Population: 1,750,179
White non-Hispanic: 83%
Black non-Hispanic: 12%
College Students: 18%

Texas

2004 Share of Primary Electorate: 10%
2008 Share of the Population: 24%
Total Youth Population: 3,557,968
White non-Hispanic: 49%
Black non-Hispanic: 14%
Hispanic/Latino: 33%
College Students: 19%

Vermont

2004 Share of Primary Electorate: 10%
2008 Share of the Population: 20%
Total Youth Population: 94,496
White non-Hispanic: 94%
College Students: 28%

Rhode Island

2004 Share of Primary Electorate: 8%
2008 Share of the Population: 22%
Total Youth Population: 166,116
White non-Hispanic: 82%
Other: 19%
College Students: 24%