2009

I want to follow up Sarah's post with another to underscore something she wrote:

The moral of the story continues to be that young voters will turn out if they are graced with the same outreach as older voters. That is, if you want them to turn out. Progressive candidates can win if they work to engage young voters in their district that connect to progressive issues. As a partisan hack my advice to the other side is to be more conservative and embrace the teabaggers.

We know that if young people are contacted by another peer and asked to register to vote, they're more likely to vote. We know that young voters are courted through peer-to-peer outreach methods by some campaigns, and more likely than not, those campaigns demonstrate success in getting youth to the polls. We just saw a GOP candidate successfully do this in Virginia.

What really concerns me is that Sarah even had to offer her "advice" to Republicans (the Democrat in me echoes it) at the end of her post. Laugh all you want, but if the Republicans continue to operate from a McConnell mode, and the Democrats continue to field campaigns like Deeds and Corzine, with no peer-to-peer operation or youth issues, it's not going to be pretty.

Yes, the mid-terms are still a little over a year away, and these gubernatorial elections pale in comparison to the scale of the mid-terms, but they definitely should be viewed as a lesson. If we start to assume young people are blue when running campaigns, we'll be left seeing red.

Despite the chatter from the punditry, yesterday was a big day for Millennials. While they focus on two races with candidates that ignored the youth vote and wonder why turnout did not match 2008's all time high, a number of young people won local elections throughout the country.

In New York, Young Democrats of America Democratic National Committeewoman Stephanie Hausner was the highest vote getter in her election to the Clarkstown Town Council. Former NYSYD National Committeeman David Carlucci won re-election as Clarkstown Town Clerk. Two former New York Young Democrats local chapter leaders, Dan French and David Fried, won local elections as well.

In New Hampshire, state Young Democrats President Garth Corriveau was elected Alderman in Manchester as was fellow NHYD Patrick Arnold.

In Washington, Kim Cole was elected to the Lynnwood City Council, Andy Ryder to the Lacey City Council, Amy Ockerlander to the Duvall City Council.

Over Twitter I've been told of a recent high school graduate that was elected to a school board in Michigan, as well as a number of other Millennial candidates that were giving victory speeches last night.

In towns and cities across the country young voters showed up to the polls to elect their own. These young local candidates realized the power of their generation, chose to run for office, and by reaching out to fellow young voters won their elections.

Yesterday's lesson was not that young voters only showed up to the polls in 2008 to elect Barack Obama, but that Democrats must continue the youth outreach and funding that occurred during the 2008 cycle. The Millennial generation does not exist to serve at the beck and call of the DNC without being respected. When a candidate speaks to the issues of young voters and actively campaigns for their votes, they will deliver. The new generation of candidates understands this, and most of those candidates have a title with -elect after it today. Creigh Deeds and Jon Corzine didn't, and in return were relegated to giving concession speeches.

The lesson for Democrats in 2010 is this: take the youth vote for granted at your own peril. If you want young voters to deliver for you, you have to be serious about earning their votes.

Also check out Sarah's take on what yesterday meant.

UPDATE: It is important to note that the 2008 youth turnout was the result of funding and youth turnout effort from 2004 through 2008, and not an isolated 2008 effort.

Michael McDonald of George Mason University has a preview of the Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement Data. McDonald confirms the increase in youth turnout in 2009, noting that the CPS data shows 51.1% of all young voters (18 - 29) turning out, an increase of 2.1 percentage points over 2004. McDonald also notes that young voters were the only age group to increase their turnout rate in 2008. I'll have much more on this tomorrow and when CIRCLE releases their own analysis of the data.

The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, Voting and Registration Supplement confirms that African-American and youth voter turnout increased between 2004 and 2008. In all, it appears that the 2008 electorate became more representative of the American citizenry in that disparities in turnout rates among various demographic categories decreased between 2004 and 2008.