Wisconsin Primary: Young Voters Choose Democrats 4 - 1

The final results from the Wisconsin primary are in, and CIRCLE is done crunching the data. Once again the story is the same - youth turnout in the Democratic Primary almost doubled, increasing from 91,120 in 2004 to 175,841 in yesterday's contest. Young voters were 16 percent of the Democratic electorate, up from 11 percent in 2004. The overall turnout rate for young voters (Republican and Democrats) was 25 percent, 11 points lower than the overall turnout rate of 36 percent.

Yet again, young voters chose Sen. Barack Obama by wide margins. 70 percent of young voters chose Sen. Obama over 26 percent who voted for Clinton. Obama performed slightly better among 18 - 24 year olds than he did the older cohort, but the differences were modest at best.

The big story continues to be the massive turnout in favor of Democrats. The graph we produced here after Super Tuesday, already out of date after last week's Potomac Primaries, is even more off now, but still quite illustrative of just how large an advantage young voters will be for the Democrats this cycle.

As I describe in my book, Youth to Power, Senator Obama didn't create this youth movement. It began back in 2003 and showed its strength in 2004 when the youth vote increased substantially for the first time in over a decade. We saw it again in 2006 when a wave of youth participation voted 60 - 38 percent in favor of Democrats and helped drive Sen. Jon Tester, Sen. Jim Webb, and Rep. Joe Courtney into office.

What's happening now is that Senator Obama is tapping into - and amplifying - that movement through a combination of message and - most importantly - substantial investment into reaching out and engaging young voters. The Democratic Party and candidates up and down the ticket would do well to learn some lessons from the Obama campaign. They too can benefit from the increased progressivism and participation of young voters if they reach out, speak to our issues, and put real resources into organizing young voters in their districts.