Youth Turnout Up - What We Know So Far

Updated at 3:40pm to reflect additional state returns.

Updated at 12:30 to reflect changes to the exit polling.

CIRCLE still has not posted results from Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Deleware, and New Mexico. And there seems to be no data at all available for all four of the Super Tuesday states that employed election day registration (Alaska, Idaho, Minnesota and North Dakota). But here's what we know so far about yesterday's youth turnout.

It was up, and in some states up big.

Youth turnout quadrupled in Tennessee. It tripled in Georgia, Missouri and Oklahoma, and it doubled in Massachusetts. There were, however, some states that didn't fare so well. In New York, youth turnout flatlined while turnout for the 30+ demographics dropped by 10 points, creating a net decline in voter turnout in the state.

As a share of the Democratic electorate, young voters increased their share in every state for which comparable data is available.

In most states, that increased turnout was to the advantage of Barack Obama, who won the youth vote in 13 12 of the 15 states for which data is currently available. The margin by which Obama carried young voters in those states varied wildly. In some states, like Georgia, he maintained his towering advantage over Clinton among young voters, and in Missouri, where he won by a mere 10,000 votes, young voters may well have been the difference in his campaign. In other states, though, like California, Clinton cut that advantage down to just a few points. Clinton actually won California. Guess the CNN exit polls are still adjusting.

Regardless of which candidate carries the nomination next month, that increased turnout will be a big advantage for Democrats in the general election. In Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York and Tennessee combined, 458,000 more young people voted in the Democratic contest than the Republican. The actual amount varied widely from state to state with Connecticut at the low end (~19,000 more Democratic youth participants) and New York at the high end (~203,000 more).

The one exception to this rule thus far was Oklahoma, in which 10,000 more young voters participated in the Republican primary than the Democratic primary.

All the data available thus far on youth turnout is pulled together in the chart below.

A quick word on methodology and data sets. In the chart below, the share of the electorate data and the turnout data come from two different sources (CNN and CIRCLE, respectively).

The Share of the Electorate data represents the youth vote share of the Democratic electorate - not the statewide electorate as a whole. The data on turnout represents total youth turnout across the state - both Democratic and Republican voters combined.

If you write about this or cite it, don't mix the apples and the oranges.