new hampshire

Hey folks. I'm sure those of you who visit the site regularly notice that there are a few different things around here lately (and for those of you in RSS-land, come see what I'm talking about). I'll have more on what's new around here tomorrow after I complete a few finishing touches tonight. In the meantime, here's some good stuff that didn't get blogged today:

• Larry Lessig's anti-corruption group Change Congress is looking for some tech-savvy kids to help run the operation. Job description is here. This should be right up the alley of FM readers.
• I've been talking for months about how John McCain plays the mainstream cultural media. Well Rock the Vote actually has some stats on it, along with a big BS detector on McCain's attempts to reach youth:
  

  Indeed, John McCain has made more guest appearances on the Daily Show—12 in total—than any other guest of the show ever. According to IMDB, McCain has also made 10 appearances on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” and 8 appearances on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” By comparison, he has appeared on the famed Sunday political talk show “Meet the Press” only 6 times.

  Too bad Obama is massacring McCain on the web. It is just not the 20th Century anymore . . . . Definitely worth a read.

• HeadCount is getting some big media play for their work at Bonnaroo this past weekend. Not in the article is the fact that HeadCount registered 1,100 new voters at the festival and received 2,000 more vote pledges. Great work y'all.
• Music for Democracy, a PAC looking to get the music scene into partisan politics, launched their website this week.
• It's been a big week for culture and politics. The Progressive Book Club also launched their website today.
• The Concord Monitor notes that over two dozen candidates under 35 are on the ballot this year. Looks like the Granite State might get a big youth-infusion in its state house.
• Finally, Marc Ambinder has the goods as to what the 3,600 Obama Fellows are doing with their time.

At The Washington Post, Chris Cillizza takes a look at the new top ten swing states. This idea of a "swing state" is a little dated, especially since the Democrats adopted the "50 State Strategy" and saw positive results in 2006. But at the end of the day, even if we do compete in all states, a few will be more competitive than others, and it is inevitable that these states will receive an inordinate amount of attention from the media, the campaigns, and 527 organizations looking to influence the outcome.

That said, here are your new swing states. Learn them well.

This looks somewhat familiar. Remember this from November 2004? These are the states where John Kerry would have won the election if only voters under 30 had cast their ballots:

I can't prove any direct connection or major demographic shift in these states at this point, but it definitely bears more looking into. It's also nice to see some states with active youth organizing making the list of "new" swing states (Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico).

Jane Fleming Kleeb is the Executive Director of the Young Voter PAC which helps Democratic candidates and State Parties win with the 18-35 year-old vote through endorsements, on-the-ground support, training, strategy and money. She is a regular on Fox and is part of MTV’s Street Team ‘08 representing Nebraska.

We have plenty of theories this morning on how and why Clinton pulled out a win in the New Hampshire primary. I am happy to say the youth vote is not being blamed for Obama's loss and instead the Clinton campaign and even some pundits are saying it was because of the youth vote that she won.

Our first concern in the youth vote community was less about who won or lost, and more about how the surge in Iowa would be portrayed if Obama did not win. The conventional wisdom in 2004 was all young people were voting for Dean. That was not true, young voters were split between Kerry, Dean and Edwards. However, that didn't stop the media from blaming young people for Dean's loss. Additionally, when Kerry lost the general election, we spent the next four years explaining that young people did turn out beating a record high from 1992. In the end, it simply did not matter though, the media wrote the youth vote story and it was "young people are all hype, they say they will show up but don't."

Cynics and pundits are on message now. We did not hear many people last night blaming Obama's loss on young people and rather they were claiming it was young people who helped propel Clinton into victory. There may be something to that.

Obama has a wider youth campaign strategy and a broader youth movement happening right now which is why overall he has higher youth numbers. The Clinton campaign saw this and went after a group within the youth demographic they knew they could get-young professional women and working-class young people. Youth turnout overall jumped to 43% up from 18% in 2004.

Obama overwhelmingly got the 18-24 year old bloc (60% vs 22% for Clinton). The 25-29 year old bloc was split, with Clinton having a 2% advantage over Obama (37% Clinton, 35% Obama). If anything, the Clinton win gives the youth vote community an opportunity to tell the story that young people can and must be found on and off campus. Only about 25% of young people are in college, so if you want the youth vote you have to go where they live and where they hang out.

In last few days of the campaign, Clinton was able to appeal to working class young people with her message of Obama living in the clouds and she is working in the trenches. With this basic point, the Clinton campaign went after the 25-29 year old block.

We also can't overlook her moment of tears. Some will say it was contrived, but it seems women ages 25-29 looked at that as first time Clinton showed that politics is about passion, not just a job. Young women in this age group are working on their early careers, struggling with making it and probably have had moments like Clinton had in the coffee shop. They may have said to themselves "yeah, I know how that feels when you work your butt off, try your best and it doesn't seem to work out." So they gave her another shot with their votes.

The good news for young voters is both campaigns-and I would bet Edwards as well-are looking at how much they are investing in their youth programs. We will be watching how the candidates talk about young voters, talk to young voters and what their GOTV efforts look like in Nevada and South Carolina and leading into Super Tuesday.

Young voters now have to decide-are they "fired up" and "ready to go" or do they jump on the "experience" bus. At the very least, the campaigns will have to retool their youth programs to reach the youth communities in Nevada and South Carolina. South Carolina has a large African American population and Nevada has large Latino population - two parts of the youth community that in 2004 voted in record numbers for Democrats. We are confident Democrats will win the youth vote, 80% of young people in Iowa and 61% in New Hampshire voted for Democrats. The only question we have is which Democrat will they go for?

CIRCLE has updated their stats (pdf) now that all precincts are reporting in, and it looks like turnout was even higher than we reported last night. The final youth turnout is 43%, more than double the turnout from 2004.

I've been thinking about why the 25 - 29 year old chose Clinton over Obama, especially after Obama scored such a huge victory in that demographic in Iowa. I've got three theories, neither of which I have access to the data so that I could actually prove it:

1. This is Hillary's old lead among non-college youth rearing its head. Maybe NH has a lot of college grads migrate away to the Boston area or other places.
2. Her field operation was great, and it happened to encompass young professionals (who will probably be in the bigger cities, which she won, more than rural areas or college towns). So even without a big youth focus, she did good peer to peer fieldwork on that older demographic, and her big messaging push towards youth at the end pushed her over the top.
3. It's also been suggested to me that Hillary came out big among women in the 25 - 29 group, as part of her overall surge among women in the state. This is possible, though I believe I heard numerous talking heads looking at the data say that most of her gains among women were from those over 30.

Update: CIRCLE has revised their turnout analysis upwards. More here.
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In yesterday's New Hampshire primary, turnout among young voters doubled over 2004 levels. With almost all precincts reporting in, an analysis by CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (pdf), showed that turnout among voters under 30 hit a high of 37%, up from 18% in 2004. In total, CIRCLE estimated that 72,041 young people made it to the ballot box on Tuesday, making up 16% of the total electorate. This continued a trend of rising participation among young voters begun in 2004, when youth turnout in the general election rose by 4.3 million votes over 2000 levels. These numbers are initial estimates, and actual turnout numbers are likely to rise as the final precincts report their results.

This was not the only trend continued by yesterday's primary vote. Once again the Democratic field had a much stronger showing among young voters than did Republicans. Just over 61% of all New Hampshire voters under 30 participated in the Democratic Primary, vs. just 39% in the Republican primary. This mimicked the results of the 2006 midterm elections, in which young voters chose Democratic candidates by a margin of 60 - 38%, and was only slightly below the results of last week's Iowa caucus, in which significantly more young voters participated in Democratic caucuses than those held by the GOP. Additionally, young voters made up a much higher percentage of the Democratic primary electorate, and exit polls by CNN show that a larger number of voters under 30 cast a ballot than did older voters in their 30's or over 65.

In one respect, yesterday's election was quite different from the Iowa caucuses. While Senator Barack Obama rode to victory in Iowa on a wave of youth support, last night it was Senator Clinton who was victorious, mainly due to large gains she made among women and young voters. After losing the youth vote to Senator Obama by a 5-1 margin in Iowa, Clinton spent the last 5 days on a course correction that saw her messaging heavily to young voters. This was on top of a months long field operation that was already targeting young voters, and seems to have had particular success among young professionals, if not the college crowd. As a result of her efforts, Clinton was able to narrow Obama's 57 - 10% lead among 18 - 25 year olds to 60 - 22%, and, most incredibly, turn a 57 - 15% deficit among 25 - 29 year olds into a 37 - 34% victory over her rival. Exit polling indicates that Clinton won by regaining her lead among women and by cutting into Obama's base.

The message coming out of New Hampshire is clear: young voters continue to trend towards and Democrats and participate more than ever. Paying attention to young voters can pay huge dividends, as the Clinton campaign has demonstrated. We're in a slugfest now, a showdown between Clinton and Obama, with both of them potentially fighting it out for the youth vote as one of the crucial blocs to swing the election. That's not a bad place to be, for our generation or for the Democratic Party. Millennials will likely be 25% of the eligible electorate in November, and we will be 36% by 2015 (pdf). Studies have shown that partisanship is a habit (pdf) that locks in early in life. Securing the allegiance of Millennials now is the basis for building a future majority for the Democratic Party, and hopefully progressive politics. Having two superstar candidates fight tooth and nail for young voters' attention doesn't seem like a bad way to earn that loyalty.

Update: Check out all the kids behind Clinton while she delivers her speech. That will be on the cover of ever paper in the country tomorrow.
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Obama just gave his concession speech, and Clinton is about to come on.

I haven't seen it personally, but people tell me that on a number of networks, Clinton staffers are being quoted as saying that paying attention to young voters in part made a difference. If the exit polls are right, it was mostly women - maybe younger women? - and a total elimination of Obama's lead among 25 - 29 year olds that made the difference.

I'm waiting on CIRCLE to crunch the numbers and I'll have a more detailed post about my thoughts on youth turnout and the results late tonight or first thing in the morning. A lot of precincts still need to report before the turnout numbers can be calculated.

Kudos to the Clinton campaign. Now we've got a real race on our hands.

CNN's exit poll is up and the youth vote stats are REALLY interesting (if still preliminary).

Overall, youth turnout looks to be up. Turnout is up across the state - among all demographics - and young voters are currently projected to be 18% of the electorate - up from 14% in 2004. This means the hard turnout numbers (how many 18-29 year old actually cast a ballot) is also likely way up.

18 - 24 year olds: 11% of the electorate - Obama winning with 61%
25 - 29 year olds: 7% of the electorate - Clinton winning narrowly 37% - 34%

In Iowa, Obama carried both the 17-24 and 25-29 demographics with 57% of the vote. Clinton cutting into his lead among the older Millennials could be bad news for Obama.

It looks like Clinton's 5 day youth blitz might be paying dividends. If so, I'll be eating crow tonight.

The open thread on the Iowa results went pretty well on Thurdsay, so I figured we'd give it another try.

Comment here on results, coverage, what you or your org did on the ground, link to press releases, etc.

The polls are open in New Hampshire (indeed, in some towns they are already closed), and around 7 or 8pm we'll start to get some results. It's pretty much in the bag that Obama will carry the state, the questions are by how much, and what will we see from young New Hampshire voters? Will youth turnout in New Hampshire triple, as it did in Iowa? Will Obama once again beat out Clinton among Millennials by 5-1? Or will Clinton's last minute appeal to young voters cut into his lead?

New Hampshire By the Numbers
According to CIRCLE, who calculated their projections using 2007 Census data for 17-28 year olds (roughly today's 18-29 year olds), voters under 30 make up 20 percent of New Hampshire's population. 38% of those young voters are students (16% high school, 22% college). In raw numbers, there are 195,031 eligible young voters in New Hampshire, 43,215 college students, and 8,910 high school students. These are the baselines against which tonight's turnout will be measured.

In 2004, while participation in the Iowa caucus among young voters quadrupled, it increased only slightly in New Hampshire, rising to 14% from 13% in 2000 (pdf). Like in Iowa, New Hampshire has election day registration, a process which is known to bump youth turnout by as much as 14%. With Obama bringing so many new people into the system, this could also be a factor tonight and will be something to watch. The Union Leader is already reporting on potentially record-breaking turnout, and a high number of voter registrations at the polling places.

The Candidates
Reports are plastered all over the pages of our major media that Hillary has spent the last 5 days reaching out to young voters, particularly on-line. Hillary has introduced some interactive Facebook programs, and spent the week uploading content like mad onto her YouTube page, but it's difficult to see how this cuts into Obama's lead among youth. The Obama campaign didn't spend the last year just making Facebook groups and uploading videos to YouTube. Online activism is about more than content. It's about creating a community and transferring the online action off-line. Peer-to-peer, on-the-ground organizing is still the most effective form (pdf), among voters of all ages. It also doesn't help when your surrogates are out trashing young voters.

According to Rasmussen Reports, the only polling outfit where I could find not only cross tabs on young voters, but cross tabs that break out youth by the 18-29 age range put the race for New Hampshire youth in Obama's favor by about 12 points:

Obama: 38%
Clinton: 26%
Edwards: 17%

The margin of error on this is probably quite high (due to a small sample size), and I think that this will probably turn out to be conservative. The polls close in just a few hours and we'll soon find out.

Here's Bill Clinton talking to MTV about young voters. Interesting that he still gets in a tiny poke about how student participation in Iowa might not be legitimate.