Young Voter Strategies

How could this be?! This is indeed breaking news, because it may very well be the first time FoxNews has done something right - er... correctly.

This comes on the heals of the CNN blunder in reporting a lot of misinformation about young people and the youth vote in 2008. Add to that Naomi Wolf and Courtney Martin and you're ready for your own nuclear meltdown of frustration.

There's been a pretty substantial rapid response linking to a brilliant post by Mike that details data and a fact sheet for reporters who can't bring themselves to research - and the response has been tremendous!

Rob Anderson from CP went after Naomi at the Washington Post, we hit CNN on FM, and Campus Progress nailed Courtney here.

After posting Mike's piece everywhere and emailing it to CNN, NPR, and all of my own local news and radio stations I figured the last to talk about young people would be a Republican News Network who so clearly excludes young people. But they did. As you can see they addressed all of our main issues.

The only fault I have with this is that the piece likens youth to phrases like "Yo Dude" when, shocking as it may seem, young people do have a capability to converse like adults and understand complex topics.

Alexandra Acker ED of the Young Democrats of America was interviewed in the piece and later commented to me

"One thing that stood out was Frank Luntz’s outrageous statement that young people want to be addressed as “Yo, dude” whereas I had spoken about the need for candidates to take young voters seriously and talk about issues they care about."

Another interesting thing to mention is the ways in which FoxNews reaches out to young commentators like Acker when CNN's and the piece on 60 Minutes was largely dominated by older generations who are out of touch with the reality of the Millennial Generation.

Fox is notorious for connecting with younger demographics (see MySpace, the Simpsons, and FoxNews Porn) - CNN's only got Anderson Cooper and Soledad O'Brien. Let's face it almost 3/4 of their airwaves are full of old angry Lou Dobbs, Larry "he's still alive?" King, and the Jack/Wolf Playdate (and my TV is always on CNN!)

The reporter doing the piece seemed young. Probably not 25, but she's definitely younger than Lou Dobbs. And Acker said she made a real effort to understand the issues:

She "went to resources like YDA and YVS, did follow-up with me after the interview to make sure she had the Harvard quote right, but CNN just recycled the same old, tired storyline."

Acker goes on to speculate that the youth friendly ways in which FoxNews and its family targets young people is perhaps because they are more aware of our generation's purchase power. And I think she's got something there.

While I agree that Fox is bad, evil, worse than bad and evil, I think if they could make more money by supporting Democrats they'd flip parties in a heartbeat. By targeting young people, regardless of party affiliation, with products, musicians, and the like their advertisers make more money and thus the network banks a pretty sweet deal.

In many ways we're being used - but at the same time, they're the only ones talking about the importance of young people in the first place - so what do ya do?

Until we can get mainstream news sources to report these facts correctly, you have to give props to the ones who do, even when they're traditionally crazy nutbars.

Cross posted to Kos, please recommend

The big news in the youth movement this week is that the old man of the Youth Vote - Rock the Vote - just merged with its studious younger sibling, Young Voter Strategies. Together, the two organizations will combine "the best components of YVS's research and outreach with Rock the Vote's long history of work to build political power for young adults." This is something that's been in the works for quite a while. Now that it has finally come to fruition, I'm left hoping for the best, but still asking a lot of questions.

Young Voter Strategies made a name for itself by rigorously investigating and documenting the most effective methods for reaching young voters and then promoting their findings to campaigns and the media. It's thanks in part to their work that so many Presidential campaigns now have full-time youth outreach staff that sit high up in the field department. It's due in part to their work that even down-ticket campaigns are devising youth outreach strategies and investing their resources in mobilizing young people. For the last few years, YVS has preached the value of peer to peer outreach and the importance of field work.

Yet Rock the Vote is primarily a media organization. In 1992 the organization accomplished an incredible amount by combining field work and a media campaign. 1992 was the first year the youth vote saw a significant increase since 1972. There were a lot of factors at work - an unusually competitive Presidential race (this was the year of Ross Perot) and strong work from the National Campaign for Student Voter Registration and the Student Environmental Action Coalition - but much of the success of that year can be attributed to Rock the Vote's combined media and field strategy. Since then, the field program has atrophied and media has become the primary focus of the organization. Indeed, this is the primary criticism I hear about the organization from ex-staff, youth organizers, and my peers who grew up with Rock the Vote as the only voice in the political debate that even tried to appeal to normal folks (read: non political junkies). Rather than create a culture of activism - or teach people to Live Liberally as we say around here - Rock the Vote devolved into a mechanism to sell young people a product: voting.

To be clear, this isn't at all to say that Rock the Vote hasn't had successes in recent times, or that it won't do good work in 2008. In 2004, 1.2 million people downloaded registration forms from their website. 75% of those people actually followed-through and registered, and 79% of those folks turned out at the polls. Those are good numbers. With their new online vote registration widget, they stand to make some substantial gains in online registration in 2008.

But what happens when you bring these two very different organizations together?

Ever since 2004, those of us who have been involved in youth outreach have been annoyed, to put it mildly, by the constant parroting of the lie that young people are apathetic, and that they will not vote. No matter how many studies came out, no matter how many experts debunk this myth, and despite the fact that the last two elections showed a pretty significant upswing in young voters, the media seemed determined to parrot talking points that claimed that young people were not worth doing outreach towards, and many campaigns seemed to go right along. Well, it looks like we may finally have turned the corner in regards to this meme, as Time Magazine featured an article last week titled Reaching Out Early for the Youth Vote.

Even in a presidential campaign that has started as early as this one, Heather Smith couldn't have expected she would already be so busy. But "my phone started ringing the day after midterms and it hasn't stopped ringing since," says Smith, 30, the executive director of Young Voter Strategies (YVS). Her non-partisan organization, which she founded after the 2004 election with funding help from Pew and George Washington University, analyzes how to best mobilize young voters. That section of the electorate has traditionally been treated as an afterthought until weeks before the actual voting. But this time around top presidential contenders and political strategists are starting to focus early on the youth vote.
...
Smith's tips could be more important than ever in 2008. After more than a decade of declining or stagnating numbers, turnout among voters under age 30 increased by almost 5 million in 2004 and almost 2 million in 2006. Voting experts say this is because a new generation has come of age — the Millienials — and they are more civically engaged young adults than so-called GenXers were during the 1990s. The Millenial Generation — those born between 1979 and 1994 — is also three times the size of Generation X. They've voted Democratic in the last two elections and according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll released in late June, they plan to again in 2008. That poll found that 54% of voters under age 30 say they intend to vote Democratic. But 40% of young adults ages 18 to 24 describe themselves as Independents, according to an April poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics. Because of that, Smith says Republicans could still win the youth vote in 2008.

Welcome to the real world, Time Magazine! I hope you enjoy your stay!

I guess my only real question at this point is: why haven't our phones been ringing off the hooks?

My only question in regards to the article has to do with this quote:

"Nobody in either party thinks that the youth vote is not worth paying serious attention to and spending money on programs to get them registered and turned out."

Really? I mean, I know that there are a few good progressive groups out there giving pretty heavily to youth outreach programs, but the Democratic Party seems pretty incapable of reaching out to a younger audience. But hell, maybe they've turned that corner too.

Originally posted on MyDD earlier today

Youth turnout is trending up.  At this point, I hope that is a given.  When we talk about those turnout numbers, frequently they are discussed in the context of national turnout or Presidential elections.  But what does it mean at the local level?  How does this play out in a Senate or House race? What about gubernatorial bids and state legislative races?  

In last year's midterms, 58 federal elections, and 80 state level races were decided by easily surmountable or razor thing margins.  Breaking those numbers down, five U.S. Senate and three gubernatorial races were decided by less than 50,000 votes; 35 House races by less than 10,000 votes and 18 by less than 5,000 votes; and 77 state legislative races were decided by fewer than 100 votes.

In almost all of these races, the margin of victory was less than the turnout increase among young voters in that state.  

A combination of three factors drove the increase in turnout: highly competitive races, in which the potential value of a single vote is recognized by formerly disenchanted young voters; non-partisan voter registration efforts aimed at youth; and partisan outreach to young voters by campaigns.  Two of these factors are outside the control of a candidate and his/her campaign.  But the third is something we can study and replicate to help drive progressive youth turnout and increase our majorities in 2008.

A new report by Young Voter Strategies provides a road map to do just that.  The report features a series of case studies on how campaigns- Democrats AND Republicans - reached out to young voters to create victory in '06.  Below the jump I've pulled out and summarized some of the more interesting case studies, and noted some best practices that have emerged - some of which are smack on the head obvious (but still aren't utilized by most campaigns), and others which go against conventional wisdom.  This is required reading for all Democratic campaign staffers.  

• ABC News is running a long piece about the youth vote - what the major candidates are doing to reach out, and what recent studies suggest are solid tactics for reaching young voters. The piece also has some rather unfortunate headlines that repeat a lot of tired ideas about the youthvote - most egregiously the article repeats the just plain wrong idea that young people didn't show up in 2004. Despite that, it's a really good piece. If you read nothing else today, read this. If you've got time, write a letter to the author about the bad stuff.
• Yesterday Young Voter Strategies released a new manual on tactics for reaching young voters - including case studies on what worked in 2006. I'm working on a big post about this, and it should be ready on Friday.
• You know all that crap about how more young people participate in American Idol than in their democracy? Well a new study by Tufts University says it's just that: crap. (Hat tip Rock the Vote Blog).
• Finally, while listening to a podcast of Meet the Press this morning, I heard conservative strategist Mary Matalin shill for Fred Thompson about how the youth vote was hot for his candidacy. She said something to the effect of there being legions of "FredHeads" waiting to volunteer. Add this to the collection of nicknames thrown at youth supporers - BarackStars, DoddPods . . . I'm sure there's one for each candidate. What's up with that?

• Over at MyDD, Nancy Scola sits down with Joe Green, creator of the new Causes application on FaceBook. The two discuss Green's Project Agape, next steps for Causes, and a hint at something even bigger coming out next month.
• I don't know how I missed this, but Young Voter Strategies released more information on early youth vote polling (pdf), showing that the youth vote is still up for grabs, but the fight is primarily between Clinton and Obama on the Democratic side. Obama currently leads 35%-29% overall, with most of his advantage coming from Men and college-youth. Clinton is drawing support from women and non-college youth.
• A columnist for the Raleigh News Observer has some interesting ideas about how a national popular vote could mean higher youth turnout.
• The Denver Post notes that both parties are starting to scramble to capture the allegiance of young voters.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I've been finishing up an article for WireTap and haven't had time for much else. We're now returning to regularly scheduled programming.

• Micah Sifry is asking if web 2.0 applies to local races. I would answer a resounding yes.
  
  FM regular Fred Gooltz used MySpace to organize young volunteers in a Yonkers, NY mayoral race. IPDI has a case study, but you've got to pay for the full publication (pdf). Check out my case study on CT Young Dems to see what YouTube can do in local politics. And as I write this, David All has also weighed in with more reasons why Web 2.0 matters at all levels of politics.
• I love NY, but I miss a lot of good stuff that happens in DC. If you're down there, you might want to check out these two events in the next week:
  
  June 5th
  Winning Young Voters
  Young Voter Strategies will host a panel of experts to release our new publication, Young Voter Mobilization Tactics Volume II, which profiles the youth outreach strategies of seven high-profile 2006 campaigns. Panelists will also discuss the possible impacts of the 2008 youth vote.

  RSVP to info@youngvoterstrategies.org.

  June 7th
  The Future of Political Communications Conference - Connecting with Young Voters.

• Finally, as a sign that I've lived in the non profit world too long, I'm ashamed to say that I found this funny.

Update: Because so many people (on MyDD and Kos) have commented, yes, I know that the PEW poll results add up to more than 100%. The poll allowed respondents to choose multiple candidates, making it less a zero-sum contest than a measurement of potential support.
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Young Voter Strategies has compiled some early polls gauging youth support for both the Democratic and Republican contenders for President in 2008. It's still way too early for us to be looking at this as anything more than a snapshot of a still relatively uninformed electorate. But it's interesting none the less in that these polls confound - and confirm - some expectations.

(click to enlarge)

Notables:

• Obama has youth support (no surprise). Two polls show that by 11 points young democratic voters are more likely to support him than the general democratic electorate.
• Despite the runaway buzz about Obama's FaceBook army, Barack is tied with Hillary for support among young voters - 52% or 29% depending on which poll you choose (I'm excluding the RT Strategies poll because it defines "young" as 18-34, well beyond the leading edge of what is considered "Millennial").
• Because it bears repeating, Hillary is tied with Barack?!?!?!
• Edwards seems to be the biggest loser in these polls. Its tough to make comparisons, since the polls vary in how they define "young" and the selection of candidates they offer to respondents, but in no poll does Edwards get more than half the support that Hillary does, and it's almost as bad when you compare him to Barack. And then there is the YVS poll - 6% is crazy low for support among young voters.

I'm guessing that the Obama/Hillary deadheat is most likely due to Clinton's name recognition rather than an indicator of actual support. It's possible that she's running away with young women voters, but this early in the game, all voters are low-information voters, and I think name recognition is probably bootstrapping Clinton into a competitive position.

As an aside, I would like to use these numbers as an excuse to force us all to take a long hard look at using MySpace or FaceBook friends as an indicator of candidate support among the youth vote. Not only are those numbers not tracking with polling, but, as I've argued before, the number of "friends" a candidate currently boasts has little to do with turnout at a caucus or ballot box in 2008. We still need better metrics than "friends" to evaluate the efficacy of social networking as a campaign tool.

As for Edwards, I can think of a lot of reasons for his poor showing - the YVS Poll could be flawed (though that doesn't account for the Pew and RT polls), OneCorp's lackluster online toolset could be turning off young voters, or Obama/Clinton's media domination could be burying him. No matter how you slice it, it's bad. A worst case scenario for the Edwards team would be that OneCorp's service model of campaign organizing isn't connecting with the young voters who would seem to be a natural fit for the Senator's strategy.

Read the full YVS release here (pdf), which includes some head to head match-ups among Democrats and Republicans. (Warning, these match-ups are fun, but have a ginormous margin of error, which is why I'm not blogging them).

I've had time to sift through what data is available, and just got off the media call held by Young Voter Strategies and CIRCLE. The bottom line is this - youth turnout increased yet again and millenials chose democrats over Republicans by 22 percentage points (60%-38%).

In Montana, where Jon Tester beat out Conrad Burns, I'm hearing that young voters made up 17% of the electorate and that their swing towards Democrats may have been the deciding factor in Tester's election.

If this is a wave election, that wave is being fueled by young voters and their growing allegiance to progressive politics.

Here's what we know so far based on exit polls, preliminary precinct reporting, and census data from March 2006: