donna edwards

Update: I've added CIRCLE's results for Maryland.

The results are in from yesterday's Potomac Primary:

In Virginia, young voters made up 14% of the Democratic electorate, up from 8% in 2004. Young voters chose Obama 76 to 24 percent. According to CIRCLE (pdf), 187,682 young voters went to the polls yesterday (Democrat and Republican), a turnout rate of 16%. Turnout for the entire electorate was 26%.

Continuing the trend in turnout, far more young people participated in the Democratic than Republican primary. Youth turnout for Democrats was 134,968, almost triple the 52,714 young voters who participated in the GOP primary. Once again, Republican voters also chose Mike Huckabeee as their candidate, 45 - 39 over John McCain.

In Maryland, the youth vote was 14% of the total Democratic share of the electorate, also up from 8% in 2004. They chose Obama 64 percent to 33 percent. According to CIRCLE (pdf), 137,997 17 - 29 year olds participated in yesterday's primaries, and the youth turnout rate increased to 15 percent, up from 11 percent in 2000.

More than triple the amount of young voters participated in the Democratic Primary as the GOP primary. There were 104,260 18 - 29 year olds who cast their ballot in the Democratic contest compared to just 3,737 for the GOP.

Also of note in Maryland is that progressive netroots candidate Donna Edwards won her primary challenge against incumbent Al Wynn. As Chris Bowers notes over at Open Left:

Huge night for progressive movement: With every precinct coming in with at least a 10% improvement for Edwards over 2006, let me reiterate this point: the new primary voters who are coming out for Barack Obama are also going to result in the first progressive displacement of a centrist, corporate, congressional Democrat via a primary in years. This it it. This is what we have been working for and building for. This is our emerging majority. We finally have the organization, and the voters, and the whole ball of wax. The movement has thoroughly come of age.

Young voters played a part in that.

Students at the University of Maryland, College Park are coming out strong for blogosphere favorite Donna Edwards, who is running against Democratic incumbent Al Wynn:

November 12, 2007 (COLLEGE PARK, MD) Students at the University of Maryland, College Park are organizing along with activists, families and other community members from all over Prince George's and Montgomery County to support Donna Edwards in her bid to beat DINO Congressman Al Wynn (MD-4). Edwards is running a strong campaign to unseat Wynn, who consistently sides with Republicans on key votes such as authorizing the war in Iraq, the 2005 bankruptcy bill, Dick Cheney's energy bill, repealing the estate tax, and other pieces of radically conservative legislation.

Wynn is backed by the same Prince George's County political machine that has produced an array of corrupt and out-of-touch politicians in local and state government. He is also helped by hundreds of thousands in oil, nuclear energy, Walmart and telecommunications PAC money.

This is good to see.

Edwards is a blogosphere favorite. Blue Majority - the Act Blue page supported by Daily Kos, Open Left, MyDD and Swing State Project - has raised almost $40,000 for Edwards on the site, and Edwards has raised almost a quarter of a million total on ActBlue. Most bloggers see Wynn's seat as a prime pickup opportunity to replace an extremely conservative Democrat with a progressive fighter. Edwards' chances are good, as she came close to beating Wynn in 2006.

I think this is solid decision on the part of Maryland youth. Hopefully these students will be able to add real value to Edward's campaign, and, by turning out the youth vote for a more progressive representative, and earn young voters and local youth organizers some cred in the blogosphere.

You can read more here at the Free State Politics blog.

Does anyone know if there is an organization in Maryland equivalent to the Bus Project or Forward Montana? I've never heard about Maryland having a solid youth infrastructure, but it is very close to DC (Wynn's district is adjacent to DC, actually) . . . I wonder if any DC groups will throw some resources in to GOTVing young voters in the district.

Regardless, this is definitely something to follow.