Paul Cleans up Youth Vote in Iowa and New Hampshire

Tuesday's New Hampshire Primary might have given Ron Paul only a second place finish, but he cleaned up with young voters.

Participation among young voters plummeted in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, when compared to the state’s 2008 primary, but nearly half of eligible voters under 30 years old who did show up to the polls threw their support behind Ron Paul."

According to CIRCLE data

"Although young voters did not turn out at a particularly high rate this year, they did have an impact by concentrating their votes for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), helping him come in second behind former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)," said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. "Dr. Paul’s 47% support from 18- to 29-year-olds was the strongest level of support for any candidate by any age group."

Of those eligible voters 18-30, 15 percent voted in yesterday's NH Primary. By contrast 4 percent of eligible voters under 30 participated in the Iowa Caucus, and similarly Ron Paul received a majority of the support from those young voters (48 percent), according to CIRCLE.

"According to CIRCLE’s estimate, approximately 8,800 young people turned out for Ron Paul in last night’s caucus. In comparison, at least 30,000 young people turned out for Barack Obama in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, contributing to his victory there. Almost twice as many young voters supported Obama in 2008 as supported all the 2012 Republican candidates combined. The 48% support for Rep. Paul was the highest level of support for any candidate among any age group in yesterday’s Caucuses. (Mitt Romney won 33% of the votes of ages 65 and older, the second strongest concentration of support.) Youth represented a typical proportion of all the Iowa Caucus-goers in 2012 at 15%.

"For the second election in a row, youth played an important role in the Iowa Caucuses,” said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. “In 2008, they turned out strong and gave their support to both parties’ Iowa Caucus winners, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. In 2012, they turned out at a more typical rate but threw such a high proportion of their votes to Ron Paul that he finished close. It is statistically unlikely that the young Paul supporters of 2012 had caucused for Obama in 2008. It is more likely that a different group was mobilized in each year."

Paul contrasts significantly with other Republican candidates by speaking directly to issues that matter to many young republicans. While Paul talks about pulling out of all of the wars and legalization of pot, Santorum gets in trouble by going to colleges and speaking about his opposition to equality. Paul's ground game also targets young people and asks them to participate - which contrasts with candidates like Newt Gingrich who supports making it harder for young people to vote. Clearly, working with young voters instead of against them garners results - at least in Ron Paul's case.

According to some young voters issues like unemployment and the cost of higher education were issues that mattered most to them during this election.