Youth For the Win: Audacity of Hope

Democracy Corps just released another poll in their “Youth for the Win” series. Not a lot of time (I'm at the RNC), so here's a brief look at the highlights of their report:

The Numbers:
Obama still maintains a significant and stable lead over McCain in this most recent poll at 57 - 29 percent. Obama lost some support among young white voters, but McCain is tanking among young independents.

Most interesting - Nader and Bob Barr are pulling 11% of the support from Independents, or 2% each overall from both McCain and Obama.

Issues
The big news coming out of this survey is the astounding degree to which economic concerns are at the forefront of young voters' minds.

We teach children in this country to reach for their dreams, well here's a look at the dreams of young america:

What does it say when the #1 life goal of young voters is paying off their debt?

Here's how that plays out at the political level:

The good news is that most young voters believe that one of the best ways to accomplish these goals is to elect Barack Obama:

Here are Democracy Corps recommendations for making that a reality:

• Progressives need to continue to nurture young people’s optimism about the possibility of change. The approach needs to be aspirational in the broad sense that things can be—will be—different and also make plain that absent the right outcome, absent the election of Barack Obama, real change is unlikely at best.
• At the same time, the approach needs to be grounded in the economic reality of this constituency. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the economy in engaging young people in this election. Obviously, almost every segment in the country will identify the economy as their leading concern. But for young people— many struggling with entry-level jobs with no benefits, many struggling with a crushing burden of debt, most struggling with a single income—the Bush economy has been particularly cruel. The approach here should be relentlessly pragmatic, stripped of flowery rhetoric and, most important, convey a sense of immediacy and urgency.
• Progressives cannot assume young people are immune from the same dynamics that are stirring the rest of the electorate. As noted, we see some defection among white Democrats and McCain outperforming Obama among partisans for the first time in this survey. (An Obama surge among white Independents disguises the impact). Obama will win this cohort decisively, but the margin and the turnout remain in question.
• Progressives need to continue to better define John McCain in this election cycle, particularly after his convention. If anything, the new polling in this period, including this project, underscores the need to draw sharper contrasts.

Methodological note: As usual, I want to note that while Democracy Corps are partisans, they also have one of the best methodologies out there when it comes to polling young voters. This poll comes from a sample of 600 young people (18 – 29) reached by cell phone, the web, and traditional landlines. As such, it accounts for “cell only” voters and is likely much more accurate than the polls produced by traditional polling firms and media outlets.