CIRCLE Releases Final Numbers on Iowa Youth Vote

CIRCLE has released its final data set on the Iowa youth turnout (pdf). Here's a quick snapshot of their findings.

• 13% of all Iowans under the age of 30 participated in the caucus. This was up from 4% in 2004, and 3% in 2000.
• Turnout among those under 30 tripled.
• The younger you went, the higher turnout was. 15% of 17-24 year olds turned out, vs. 9% of those between 25 and 29 years of age.
• 73% of young caucus-goers participated in the Democratic caucus vs. 27% in the republican caucus (46,640 vs. 10,235 out of 64,080 caucus-goers under 30).

The Democratic Caucus

• Young voters made up 22% of Democratic caucus-goers, up from 17% in 2004.
• The majority of young Democratic caucus-goers were female, the reverse was true for the Republican caucus.
• More than 4x as many young independents participated in the Democratic Caucus than the Republican caucus (~9,500 vs 2,000).
• In the Democratic Caucus, Obama drew the support of 57% of both the 17-24 and 25-29 groups.
• Among young caucus-goers in the Democratic caucus, the under 25 group was the most liberal of all demographics. 77% of Democratic caucus-goers under 25 identified as "liberal," compared to 54% of the entire Democratic caucus electorate.

Republican Caucus

• Young voters made up 11% of Republican caucus-goers.
• Among the Republican caucus-goers under 30, 40% of voters under 30 chose Mike Huckabee.
• 65% of caucus-goers under 25 described themselves as "born again" or "evangelical."
• Republican caucus-goers under 25 were the least likely to describe themselves as "very conservative" (30% vs 45% for all caucus goers).

I'll have specific numbers on 2004 turnout and current population for New Hampshire later today. That will be the baseline against which tonight's youth turnout should be measured. But people will inevitably reach for an Iowa comparison as well, and this data from CIRCLE is the best out there.

It's true that Barack Obama brought a lot of new, independent young people into the party (almost 25% of all young democratic caucus-goers), but of particular interest, I thought, were the number of young Democratic caucus-goers who identified as "liberal." That's the face of post-partisanship?