polling

This is a pretty substance-heavy Quick Hits. Any one of the items here should merit a full blog post. There's just not enough time, damn it! Not enough time . . .

• CNN Money has an almost great segment on how the economic downturn may be driving young voters to the polls. My only quibble - in the final line the reporter claims that in the past "young people were eager to register, but not to vote." That's just not true. 80% of registered young voters actually cast a ballot on election day. Registration is the problem, not turnout. Or, as I've been saying - higher youth turnout is not about curing apathy but increasing access. (h/t Chris Kennedy of Rock the Vote)

• In the wake of GOP voter suppression efforts that have ensnared young people and veterans in Montana, Forward Montana has launched Montana Voter Suppression (.org), a website to track, report, and prevent voter suppression efforts in the state. Earlier today, the group also held a protest in front of the office of MT Rep Dennis Rehberg's office. Rehberg's chief of staff, Erik Iverson, is the Chair of Montana GOP, the group behind the voter challenges.
• Speaking of voter suppression, Nancy Scola and Allison Fine have a spectacular post over at Tech President detailing how Twitter could be used as an election protection tool.
• GQRR has a new poll out, this time of women. The results show that unmarried women, including many young women, are the key to Obama's success among that demographic. Unmarried women are supporting Obama 62 - 33%. So much for the "Palin Effect."

• In Kansas, Jim Slattery is embarking on a campus tour to drum up youth support for his Senate campaign. All down-ballot candidates should consider this if they want to ride the youth wave to its fullest. As much as we'd like to think they do, Obama's coattail don't necessarily extend all the way down the ballot.
• Veterans group IAVA issued it's congressional score card today, and John McCain earned a big fat D. The Disabled Veterans of American didn't score him much better, giving the Senator a 20% rating. So much for supporting the troops.

Update: Ironically, USA Today has a much better write-up (and a cover-story, no less) on the poll results than does their partner Gallup. Most notably, Gallup buried the headline in their analysis. While Obama's support over McCain may be fairly typical for those following youth polling this year, it is anything but typical when taken in the context of most Presidential elections (emphasis mine):

A USA TODAY/MTV/Gallup Poll of registered voters 18 to 29 years old shows Democrat Barack Obama leading Republican John McCain by 61%-32%, the most lopsided contest within an age group in any presidential election in modern times.

And your daily Schadenfreude. Republicans are coming to grips with just how bad this is for them in the long-term:

Some Republicans fear that whatever the outcome Nov. 4, movement of this generation to Obama could set political views through their lifetimes, reverberating in future elections.

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Nothing too shocking in this new poll from Gallup/MTV/USA Today:

Bottom Line

A majority of 18- to 29-year-olds are registered to vote in this election and have given it a lot of thought. They prefer Barack Obama, both as an alternative to John McCain, but also as the candidate who is the most likely to understand their problems and to bring positive change to their own lives. Casting a ballot for Obama also carries the excitement of making history. Nearly 8 in 10 consider this election to be more important than other elections, if not the most important in the past 50 years. What remains to be seen is how many of this highly sought-after demographic will in fact turn out and vote on Election Day, and thus help to determine the winner.

Notice how few young people find McCain to be independent or willing to put the nation ahead of his own political interests. Despite all messaging to the contrary, young people do not believe that John McCain is a "maverick," or that he puts "country first."

As I said, nothing here is at all new - even Obama's lead over McCain among youth is holding steady at ~2 - 1. As we leave the voter registration phase of this election cycle and turn our eyes towards turnout, it is starting to look like the more interesting question will be less about youth support at the top of the ticket, and more about how much young voters will turnout for down-ballot Democrats who can help Obama accomplish his legislative agenda once in office.

More to come on that front soon.

Last week I noted that the Wall Street Journal, NBC and MySpace released a joint poll in which they attempted to gauge the views of "new" and "lapsed" voters, who were defined as voters who had participated in the past, but skipped the 2004 election. At the time, I warned that there was a danger in making the mistake of equating these voters and the poll's results with the opinions of young voters.

Well, I just saw an MSNBC interview between Chuck Todd and Lee Brenner of MySpace in which both Todd and Brenner make this mistake multiple times during the segment. Brenner even goes so far as to suggest that the results of the poll accurately reflect the views of "students," a distinction made no where in the poll's methodology.

As I noted in my previous blog post, 45% of the survey respondents were over the age of 30. 39% of the sample was over 35 years of age. In my world, those don't count as young voters. The vast majority of the statistics discussed by Brenner and Todd make no distinction between those older and younger respondents in the poll, or between "new" and "lapsed" voters, who surely have different levels of interest and engagement. These respondents - and the results of this poll - shouldn't be equated with all young voters.

The WSJ/NBC/MySpace poll offered some unique information on new and lapsed voters. But that information can't be examined in a vacuum and it shouldn't be used to infer things about young voters generally. For a complimentary, and I think more accurate, look at what young voters are thinking this election cycle, I recommend the recent non-partisan poll released by Rock the Vote, Lake Research, and The Tarrance Group.

The Wall Street Journal, NBC and MySpace released a new poll today examining the attitudes of "new" and "lapsed" voters. The poll is unique in that it breaks out these two under-reported groups, however news coverage of the results by both The Wall Street Journal and MSNBC paint an overly grim picture of the potential turnout among these voters that is unsupported by the data.

In her WSJ story today on the poll, Sara Murray writes:

The survey, conducted by the Wall Street Journal, NBC News and the MySpace networking Web site, also found these voters have distinctly more positive impressions of Sen. Obama than any of the other three candidates atop the Democratic and Republican tickets.

But that hardly means the Obama campaign can count on them. When asked to rank their interest in the Nov. 4 election, just 49% said they were "very interested." By comparison, 70% of voters of all age groups said they were "very interested," according to a separate Journal/NBC News national poll taken a week ago.

Moreover, 54% of the new voters said they would definitely vote Nov. 4.

Murray is cherry picking her data here. Looking at the internals of the poll, respondents were asked to rank the likelihood of their voting on a scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being "definitely voting" and 1 being "definitely not voting." It's true that 54% responded with a 10, but what Murray leaves out is that 30% more respondents chose "8" or "9" - pretty high numbers on the scale. That means that 84% of respondents were very likely to vote. If you add in any respondents above "5", that number jumps 90%.

When it comes to interest in the election, Murray made the same editorial decision, including only respondents who answered with a "10" on a 10 point scale. Adding in the "8s" and "9s" again, and we see that 78% of respondents were very interested in the election, far higher than the 49% cited in the article.

In both instances, Murray uses only the most extreme levels of support in her examples. That had the effect of driving down the overall numbers and raised doubts about turnout among new and lapsed voters. While that may have fit her storyline, it was far from an accurate representation of the poll's findings.

Recognizing that we shouldn't automatically equate young voters with "new and lapsed" voters (though there is much overlap and both the WSJ and MSNBC blur the distinction), I want to point out that when you add in the additional response data, the broad trends here echo polling released by Rock the Vote in recent weeks. In a survey of young voters conducted in September, Rock the Vote found that 87% of young voters were following the election either "closely" or "very closely." They also found that 86% of young voters were either "likely" or "extremely likely" to vote this year. These numbers are almost identical to those found in the WSJ/NBC poll once you add in the very clearly interested respondents cut out of the article.

What's more, when discussing both statistics, Rock the Vote and their pollster Celinda Lake took a decidedly different view of their meaning. In a recent conference call presentation of the poll, Lake noted that the results are at record highs and are backed by favorable trends from the previous elections. In 2006, only 69% of young people stated that they were likely to vote. The results that November? A Democratic landslide in which young voters played a key role in the elections of Jon Tester, Jim Webb, and Joe Courtney. Just this past February, Rock the Vote found that 80% of young people were interested in the election. The corollary at the polls? In primary after primary contest we saw youth turnout double, triple, and even quadruple over turnout from previous years.

Murray's interpretation takes none of this recent history into account (emphasis mine):

These new voters are being closely watched by both political parties this fall. Regular Wall Street Journal/NBC News national polls indicate that these first-time and returning voters could account for between 10% and 13% of the November electorate.

The findings of the survey underscore the opportunities and the hurdles that face the Obama campaign. It has spent millions of dollars to register voters, as well as on plans to get them to the polls.

Traditionally it has been highly difficult for campaigns to get newly registered voters, especially young ones, to show up on Election Day.

It's not hard to get young people to show up on election day, it's just that neither party, and only very few candidates, ever put in the requisite work to do so. What we know from past election is that peer to peer outreach works in getting new voters to the polls - particularly young, first time voters. We know that such strategies have successfully increased the youth vote in the last three election cycles. And we know that Barack Obama is better than any candidate in decades at getting those voters to the polls.

The millions of dollars the Obama campaign sunk into youth registration and GOTV were well spent, and the campaign has reaped the rewards of those investments ever since new, mostly young, voters propelled him to victory in the Iowa caucuses.

The explosion of new voters isn't a hurdle for Obama, it's an opportunity. The fact that these unlikely and first time voters are so excited about this election is a chance to reach out our hand and welcome them into the political process. The Obama campaign understands this. Young organizers, who have worked for 5 years to bring the youth vote to the forefront understand this. Some people in the media still don't get it.

I've never heard of Anderson Analytics before, so take this with a grain of salt, but in a poll of 1,000 students, they found that Sarah Palin's presence on the ticket did not help McCain draw support among college students generally, or among young women attending college:

Stamford, CT (PRWEB) September 30, 2008 -- According to the Anderson Analytics GenX2Z College Poll, 60% of college students (ages 17-34) prefer Senator Obama while only 25% prefer Senator McCain.

Interestingly, the choice of Sarah Palin does not seem to have helped McCain much among female college students. Females were significantly more likely than their male counterparts to prefer Obama (62.9% of females vs. 55.4% of males preferred Obama while only 23% of females vs. 28.4% of males preferred McCain).

The overall 34% youth vote difference between the two candidates is larger than what has been reported in earlier polls among youth. To benefit from the lead, Democrats need to ensure that these students actually visit the polls on Election Day.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's debate. Each new Katir Couric interview with Palin that comes out is another nail in the GOP coffin. All Biden has to do is sit back, direct his attacks at Bush and McCain, and say as little as possible. Sarah Palin will self-immolate during the 2 minute response periods when she won't be able to rely on straight talking points (or look foolish doing so).

At FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver notes that another pollster - Selzer & Co - think that most polling outfits are undercounting and improperly weighting the youth vote in their polls, resulting in a net gain in support for John McCain:

Selzer thinks that a lot of pollsters may be undercounting the youth vote, and potentially also the black vote. Young voters are becoming harder and harder to reach. They are in the habit of screening their phone calls. More problematically still, a great number of them (roughly 50 percent of voters under 30) rely principally or exclusively on cellphones, which most pollsters (including Selzer) will not call.

Pollsters can attempt to work around this problem by weighting the young voters they are able to reach more heavily; indeed, it is imperative that they make at least some attempt at weighting if they want to produce accurate results. But Selzer says she knows of at least one prominent polling firm -- she would not mention them by name -- which is not weighting by age groups at all.

Moreover, many of the pollsters that do weight by age group may be doing so -- to her mind -- in the wrong way. Specifically, they tend to use the 2004 election as a benchmark, when 17 percent were aged 18-29. Selzer uses census bureau data as her benchmark instead; among American adults aged 18 and up, about 22 percent age 18-29. This might not seem like a large difference, but given Obama's strong performance among young voters, it makes a difference of about 1.5 points in the net Obama-McCain margin.

This comes on the heals of a report by Pew Research, and previous blog posts from Mark Blumenthal and Nate Silver, noting a consistent 2 - 3% advantage for McCain in polls that exclude cell-only samples that heavily favor voters under 30 and are more pro-Obama than landline users of all ages.

Selzer is attempting to compensate, resulting in a consistent variance in favor of Obama between her polls and other pollsters. Silver notes that this is a gamble, but one that could pay off. She nailed the prediction for the Iowa Caucus, and if she's equally accurate in November, he predicts that we could see a whole lot more pollsters start to change their methodology.

Hold onto your hats. Every link today is pure youthy awesomeness and should be read. In no particular order, but with extra commentary:

• Conservative reporter Carl Cannon, writing at conservative outlet Reader's Digest, reports that pollsters are probably underestimating the youth vote this year.
• The LA Times reports that Obama wins the Xbox/Rock the vote primary, but wonders if young gamers will actually vote. As we know from the recent Pew study, the answer is yes.
• Our own Sarah Burris has an excellent piece over at WireTap grading the RNC and the DNC for their inclusion of youth. It's comprehensive and enlightening and unexpected to see where each convention excelled and where they inevitably fell short.
• There is a lot of chatter lately among youth organizers about finding ways to reach high school students. One answer may be Channel One, the news/advertising network played in so many homerooms across the country. The channel recently launched One Vote 2008 to cover the elections. Now if we could only get our folks in front of their cameras . . .
• Youth Vote '08 covers the launch of Generation WE, a new study on Millennials. We'll have more about this in the coming days.
• In the Washingtonian, Garrett Graff thinks that Millennials will cost McCain the election.
• Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising is now available for download.
• Rock the Vote's new poll gets some coverage from UPI and The Nation.
• In cooperation with PayPal, MySpace deploys a new system to raise money for nonprofits through its network.

We've been talking about this for at least a year here on Future Majority, but now Pew Research is ready to come out and say it. The number of cell phone-only voters are now numerous enough that their exclusion from traditional polling is skewing the data. A new report from Pew shows that in three straight surveys, lack of cell-only data skewed the survey results 2 - 3% in favor of John McCain.

From the report (emphasis mine):

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has conducted three major election surveys with both cell phone and landline samples since the conclusion of the primaries. In each of the surveys, there were only small, and not statistically significant, differences between presidential horserace estimates based on the combined interviews and estimates based on the landline surveys only. Yet a virtually identical pattern is seen across all three surveys: In each case, including cell phone interviews resulted in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain, a consistent difference of two-to-three points in the margin. [...]

As implied by these results, in each of the three polls, the cell-only respondents were significantly more supportive of Obama (by 10-to-15 percentage points) than respondents in the landline sample. For example, in the September survey Obama led McCain by a 55%-to-36% margin among cell only voters, but the candidates were tied at 45% in the landline sample.

In large part, this reflects the fact that a substantial minority of the cell-only sample is younger than 30 - a demographic group that has consistently backed Obama this year. Traditional landline surveys are typically weighted to compensate for age and other demographic differences, but the process depends on the assumption that the people reached over landlines are similar politically to their cell-only counterparts. These surveys suggest that this assumption is increasingly questionable, particularly among younger people.

As the chart on the right shows, cell-phone only voters under the age of 30 are substantially different in their identification with the Democrats and their support for Obama than are their peers with landline access. Young voters who rely solely on their cell-phones, and thus are often excluded from polls, are far more supportive of Obama and the Democratic Party than are their landline counterparts.

The implications are clear: Obama's youth support, already underrepresented in polls that screen for "likely voters," are further underrepresented due to their phone preferences. As a result, it's not unreasonable to look at the polls that exclude cell-phone samples and compensate for that bias by adding a point to Obama's total and removing a point from McCain's.

For those of us supporting Obama (and biting our nails in recent weeks) that's an encouraging thought, but it also begs a question. This problem isn't going to go away. In fact, it is only going to get worse. As the Pew report points out, cell-phone only voters are growing at a rate of 2% a year, and could be 17% of the electorate in 2008. As that population grows, will pollsters rethink their methodologies to accommodate that shift? And if young voters are being underrepresented due to their cell-phone habits and likely voter screens, what will that mean for the accuracy of the polls leading up to election day? Could the pollsters be as wrong in 2008 as they were in 2004?

Sorry for the late post, but there is just so much information to digest here. This is my first go of it. I'm sure you'll be seeing these states used heavily in my blog posts over the coming weeks. --Mike

One of the big questions on everyone's mind this year is "just how important will the youth vote be this year?" I just got off a conference call in which Rock the Vote and pollsters Celinda Lake (D) and Ed Goeas (R) discussed the findings of their new poll of young voters. Conducted between September 8 and 17 and sampling 650 18 - 29 year olds on both cell phone and landlines, this is probably the only reliable poll out there at the moment with a sizable enough sample to accurately reflect the attitudes of young voters in the post-convention electorate.

Short version: Not much has changed since February, when Rock the Vote released it's last poll. Despite the conventions, the slew of attack ads, and the introduction of the VPs into the race, young voters are more engaged in the election than ever before, they still overwhelmingly identify as Democrats, Sen. Obama still holds a large, double digit lead over McCain among this cohort (56 - 29%), and while Sarah Palin's pick as the VP is energizing Young Republicans, it has failed to move new young voters into the Republican camp. In essence, if the election were held today, young voters would not only turnout in record numbers, they would vote for Barack Obama by overwhelming margins

That's only scratching the surface of the wealth of data offered in Rock the Vote's poll. There is a ton of information here, and I'll try to unpack it as succinctly as possible in this much more wonkier version:

Political Environment
Young voters are more energized than ever before - whether they support the Democratic and Republican tickets. The overall political environment greatly favors the Democrats, however. A vast majority of young voters believe that the country is on the wrong track, though less so than the general population. Young voters are paying closer attention to the race than ever before, and record numbers of these young voters are self-identifying as Democrats.

• 69% of young voters believe that the country is "on the wrong track," this number is unchanged since February, and is lower than the number for all adults, 81% of whom believe the country is headed in the wrong direction
• Half of all young voters identify as Democrats, compared to just 29% who identify as Republicans. This is a 10 point increase since the 2006 elections.
• 87% of young voters are closely following the elections, an increase of 7% since February.
• 86% of young people say they are likely to vote in November, compared to 69% who said that in September of 2006.
• Young Republicans have closed the enthusiasm gap and now 3/4 of both Democrats and Republicans say they are excited about their ticket and are extremely likely to vote in November.
• The Democrat's advantage among youth is evident in all demographics:

The Candidates
There are few surprises here. Barack Obama remains the choice of young voters (56 - 29%) and while overall support for both candidates remains steady, McCain has seen his maverick image plummet among young voters, perhaps due to negative campaigning in the weeks leading up to the poll. While Independent voters make up a slim portion of the youth vote this year, Independents are more likely to lean towards Obama than Sen. McCain. This is likely due to the fact that young voters view this election through the "change" frame favored by Obama rather than the "experience" frame recently pushed by the McCain campaign. Neither Biden's nor Palin's place on the ticket has altered the race among young voters.

• Both of the Democratic Candidates are viewed more favorably by young voters than their Republican opponents. Both Democrats have a net positive favorable rating (+22 for Obama, +30 for Biden). Both Republicans have a net negative rating (-4 for both McCain and Palin).
• Joe Biden is the least known factor in the race among young voters, with 33% having no opinion of him.
• All the candidates far better among Independents, who have favorable views of all the candidates. While McCain and Palin gain ground among independents, Obama still maintains a healthy lead among this group
• While both Obama and McCain's favorable ratings have remained steady since February, McCain's unfavorable's have climbed by 15 points since then, moving his rating from a net positive to a net negative.
• Despite that, both candidate's support remains steady, and supporters of both candidates have only increased their enthusiasm since February.
• Among independents who have not yet cast their lot with a candidate, Obama stands more likely than McCain to capture their votes, with 58% suggesting that they might vote for Obama compared to just 45% for McCain.
• On the issue of "Change vs. Experience," McCain still beats Obama among those looking for experience, but the poll shows that it is the Change issue that is most likely to decide how young voters cast their ballots:

Congress
Young voters are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates this November than Republicans, although the current numbers are not as high as the margins democrats received in February or during the 2006 elections. This shift in opinion, however, has not benefited the Republicans. Rather, young people have moved from the Democratic column into the "undecided" column.

• 49% of all young voters say they will vote on the Democratic line in Congressional elections this fall. This is a slight drop-off from February, when 52% declared their support for Democrats.
• This movement away from Democrats has not helped the Republicans, whose numbers have held steady at 27%. Rather, more young people are unsure of their choice in November.

On the Issues
The economy remains the #1 issue among young voters, but it's position has solidified since the last poll in February, with more young voters than ever citing it as the top issue which the next president must address. Among independents, a small but important piece of the youth electorate, College affordability remains an issue of concern. Candidates hoping to woo those voters into their column need to talk more about that issue on the trail.

• There are substantial differences between young Democrats, Independents, and Republicans when it comes to the issues. Among Democrats, the economy is overwhelmingly the most important issue (38%). While it remains the #1 issue for Independents (26%) and Republicans (17%), both of these groups have significantly different views when it comes to the second and third most important issues facing the country. Young Republicans are disproportionately concerned with Terrorism and high gas prices (16 and 15% respectively), while 19% of Independents rank college costs and education as a significantly important issue.
• ~65% of young voters believe that the candidates are not talking enough about college affordability and job creation, and a majority of young voters believe that the candidates are not talking enough about health care or gas and energy prices.
• These issues, which are still not being adequately addressed by candidates, are the issues on which young votes will most likely cast their ballot:

The Palin Effect
Much has been made about Sarah Palin as the Republican VP choice and the potential for her to appeal to young voters turned away by McCain's age, and in particular to pull young, independent women behind the Republican ticket. This has not happened. As we saw above, support among young voters for McCain remains both low and steady. While Palin's entry has energized young Republican women and young Republicans who already supported the ticket, it has failed to move young voters generally. In addition:

• By over a 30 point margin (76 - 42%), young women view Obama's candidacy as more historic than Palin's quest for the Vice Presidency.
• Young Republicans, and young Republican women, are the most likely to see Palin's choice as VP as historic (61 and 68%, respectively). All other groups see Obama's candidacy as the more historic, defining choice of this election.
• Like McCain, Sarah Palin has a net negative fav/unfav rating among young voters, with only 37% viewing her favorably compared to 40% who view her unfavorably.

Reaching Young Voters
Rock the Vote's poll also shatters some myths about how young people participate in the election. One of the biggest stories this year has been the role of technology in engaging young voters. While many active young voters - hundreds of thousands to millions - have engaged the campaign through these technologies, the vast majority are still engaged primarily via word of mouth contact with their friends and family. These face to face, peer to peer conversations are still the primary way by which young people learn about and are engaged in this election cycle.

When it comes to learning about the campaigns, it is also important to realize that while new sites like Facebook and YouTube are playing an important and growing role, TV and Cable news remains a dominant player in how young people get their information.

Conclusion
There was not a whole lot of information that was new or surprising in the results found by Rock the Vote. Mostly, their results serve to solidify what we already know about young voters: they are a highly Democratic age group; the economy remains the #1 issue candidates must address to obtain their vote; young voters are paying attention more than ever and may turn out in record numbers for a third consecutive election cycle; peer to peer contact remains the most important and effective tool for reaching young voters.

The biggest piece of new information is the discovery that McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as the VP has energized the Republican base, but failed to move voters behind the Republican ticket. This will be useful as progressives continue to debunk Palin in the coming weeks.

Progressives have an historic opportunity here. As Celinda Lake stated during the conference call, we know that if a young voter picks a party in their first three major elections they rarely cross party lines again. For tens of millions of Millennials, who first voted in 2004, this is that third election.

Over the coming weeks, to maximize youth turnout, progressives will need to continue to hammer McCain/Palin hard on the economy, discuss the current economic crisis and what it means in terms of jobs, college affordability, and the ability of all americans to pay their gas bills and make ends meet. This will need to happen through stump speeches, but more importantly, through an on the ground field operation that emphasizes the kind of face to face conversations that are most influential in turnout out and engaging young voters.

Methodology
The survey was conducted by phone using professional interviewers September 8 – 17, 2008. It reached a base sample of 500 18-29 year olds nationwide, including 329 reached on landline phones and 171 reached on cell phones. There were also additional oversamples of 75 Latinos and 75 African Americans, for a total sample of 650 18-29 year olds. The data were weighted slightly by gender, race, age, party identification, and phone usage in order to ensure that they accurately reflect the population. The margin of error for the survey is +/- 4.4 percentage points.

Update: Here's another thought. I wonder if there is any connection between this and declining TV viewership among younger voters? Most attack ads are going to be delivered via TV advertising and repeated on network news coverage. These things also make their way onto YouTube, Blogs, MoveOn emails and more, so maybe there's nothing here, but it's a thought.
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Here's a little bit of weird data in a poll taken by Pew. Despite weeks of attacks by McCain - many of which were declared outright lies by the media and even Karl Rove - and another week in which Obama punched back with a lot of negative ads, young voters this cycle are less likely than young voters in 2004 to view this campaign cycle as overly negative.

When the public is asked to characterize the tone of the presidential campaign thus far, fewer now than in 2004 describe the race as too negative. Four years ago, more than six-in-ten (62%) said that the campaign was too negative, while just 32% said it was not. Now, 43% describe the race as too negative and a slight majority (51%) says it is not.

This shift in the balance of opinion is found across gender and party, but nowhere is it stronger than among young people (those under 30). For this group, 58% said that the campaign was too negative in 2004, while just three-in-ten (30%) describe it this way today. That is markedly different than older Americans. Among those 65 and older, a majority (61%) described the presidential race as too negative in 2004 and still half (52%) describe the campaign as too negative this year.

I guess Obama's generally positive campaign rhetoric might account for this? It seems odd that young people aren't responding negatively to so many attacks on their candidate . . .

In general, this is a very good thing. Negative campaigns can sometimes depress turnout - including young voter turnout. If most young voters don't see the campaign as too negative by now, there's not too much of a chance anything we see in the next 6 weeks will change their mind.