Ohio

In case you missed it . . .

• A loophole in Ohio voting law that will allow for one-stop registration and voting this fall could be a huge boon to Obama (and young voters) in the state.
• Yesterday activists launched a campaign on Facebook against Evan Bayh as the potential VP pick called 100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh. You would already know this if you were friends with Future Majority on Facebook.
• Huckabee youth group "Huck's Army" is now recruiting for McCain.
• Future Majority friend, activist, and videographer "noneck" Noel Hidalgo was deported from China this week for filming protests in Tiananmen Square. Noel and his crew might be following me around during the DNC convention producing video for FM. Let's hope it doesn't get quite so dicey in Denver.
• Jared Polis won his primary in Colorado and will go on to become the next Democratic congressman in his district. Not only that, he is the first openly gay candidate elected to congress and he may well be one of - if not the - youngest congressman in the country. I'm proud to have had Jared as a guest in our live blog series. Congrats to him and everyone who worked on the campaign.
• I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but in the next few days, Barack Obama will announce his VP nominee via text message. This was a great idea on their part. They probably received thousands of cell phone numbers that can now be used to get out the vote in November via text.
• The New York Times has more on that in Garret Graff's op-ed about text messaging in the Presidential campaign.
• Blender asked the candidates about their favorite songs. John McCain - what happened to Usher? I thought he was your favorite artist?
• The Washington Post has the skinny on the hottest parties at the DNC.
• In Nevada, a 22 year old is running against an incumbent state Senator who has held office since 14 years before his challenger was born.
• The Wall Street Journal finally picked up on James Fowler's study of the Colbert Bump.
• Generation Vote has a put together a Youth policy platform.
• The Post Chronicle has some thoughts about what Obama's youth supporters need to do post-election day.
• Tom Friedman actually wrote a decent piece about McCain's energy policy.
• It's Getting Hot in Here explains the whole "Gang of 10" energy compromise and why it's a win for Obama.
• David Burstein of 18 in '08 explains the significance of just one vote.
• Medill reports that this may be the geekiest of all conventions.
• Wow:

Those who read our diaries know Project Vote as the organization that fights voter suppression and helps election protection efforts. What you may not know is that in addition to being on the frontlines in the fight for voter rights, Project Vote is also the largest voter registration organization in the United States.

Since 2003 over one-third of all registration applications submitted through voter registration drives in the U.S. have come through Project Vote. In 2003-04 we submitted 1.13 million applications, in 2006 just over 547,000, and by Friday we will collect our 1,000,000th registration for 2007-08. Half of our registrants are under 30, and almost all of them are African-Americans or Latinos. One-third of them have never registered before in their lives.

With one month left in the drive we have 270,000 more registrations to collect and you can help!

Project Vote is proud of our achievements. No voter registration organization in U. S. history has been able to help register over a million low-income people for two presidential election cycles in a row. This success is a testament to our field partners, our state of the art project management system, and the generosity and commitment of our donors.

But our work is not yet finished. Our goal for the 2007-2008 election was 1.27 million voters, so we still have 270,000 more applications to collect in states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. We are now one short month away from the end of our program and we need everyone’s help to finish the job.

In at least five states nationwide Project Vote will help register more voters than made up the margin of victory in the last presidential election: no matter how our registrants choose to vote, these last few votes will matter in a real and powerful way.

Rest assured that in addition to our record-breaking voter registration effort, our Elections Administration program will continue through Election Day to make sure our applicants and similarly situated applicants get on the voter rolls, can vote, and have their vote counted. In fact, we’ve been hard at work fighting voter purges in the South in recent days.

If you would like to reach out to Project Vote, you can contact us at 800-546-8683, 202-546-4173, or via e-mail at researchdirector@projectvote.org

Most of you have probably already heard that the latest Public Policy Polling survey has Barack Obama with a double digit lead over McCain - 50 - 39%. The Party is unifying behind Obama, allowing him to overtake McCain in states where he previously trailed.

So how are youth factoring into that equation? I took a look at what crosstab data is available (pdf), and, according to PPP, it doesn't look like Ohio youth are giving Obama much help at all.

You may remember that in the Ohio Primary, Sen. Obama crushed Senator Clinton among Ohio youth - 61 - 35%. Considering that young voters in Ohio participated in the Democratic primary over the GOP primary at a rate of almost 3 - 1 (pdf), it would be expected that Obama would blow-out McCain among Ohio youth.

My only explanation is sample size. Young voters were 17% of the sample (n=773), or about 131 respondents. The margin of error for the youth numbers could be huge.

The flip side of this equation is that if the PPP survey royally screwed up it's youth sample, that would mean that Obama might hold an even greater lead in Ohio than the survey indicates . . . anyone more savvy with numbers than me have thoughts on this?

This is something to watch - and another reason why we need more reliable youth polling. A lot of youth organizations will be on the ground in Ohio. For a variety of reasons (cell phone/lack of landlines, small sample sizes, etc.) most polls fail to adequately survey younger voters. It would be nice to have solid data about what youth are thinking and how we can best talk to them about the election. Particularly in the major battleground states.

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).

I have to say, this is getting exhausting, covering the primary, but last night brought more good news for youth vote advocates and young people fighting for their voice to be heard.

According to CIRCLE, the youth vote tripled in Texas yesterday, with over 620,000 young people going to the polls, despite reports that many young people experienced difficulties in casting their ballots. Youth turnout in the Lonestar state hit 17%, up from 6% in 2000, and the youth share of the electorate was 15%, up from 9% in 2000.

In Ohio, almost 480,000 young voters went to the polls - nearly double the amount from 2000. The Ohio youth turnout rate was 25%, up from 15% in 2000 and confirming my suspicion that Ohio would have a higher than average turnout rate. The youth share of the Ohio electorate was 15%, up from 11% in 2000.

In both states young voters participated in the Democratic primary over the GOP primary at a rate of 2.6 to 1, continuing the trend set in almost every other contest thus far (Oklahoma and Utah being the exceptions).

As in most of the previous contests, young voters overwhelmingly chose Sen. Obama over Senator Clinton. In Ohio he captured the youth vote 61 - 35 percent. In Texas he won by a slimmer 58 - 42 percent.

Despite these wins, Clinton seems to have recaptured what little base she has among youth - non college, low income, and young Latinos. In each category Clinton erased the gains made by Senator Obama during the Potomac Primaries just a few weeks back and won those demographics.

Less data is available for Vermont and Rhode Island (CIRCLE was not able to attain the necessary data to crunch the numbers), but here's what we know from the CNN exit polls. In Rhode Island, young voters made up 13% of the electorate - up from 8% in 2004 - and Sen. Obama capture the youth vote 53 - 47 percent. In Vermont, young voters were 11% of the electorate, a slight increase over their 10% share in 2004. As in other states, they chose Obama 64 - 31%.

Still no nominee, but the surge in youth participation continues, particularly in the two states where the candidates expended the most effort to get out the vote, and young voters continue to choose Democrats over Republicans by more than 2 - 1. Good news for November, whoever the nominee will be.

Tomorrow is Junior Super Tuesday - Sen. Clinton's final firewall, if you believe it. In Texas, both campaigns are courting the growing latino youth vote, and in Ohio, Sen. Obama has indie rock stars pumping up his already uber-energized youth supporters. He may need that extra support if prediction of snow storms blanketing the state tomorrow turn out to be true.

Here's a quick look at the demographic breakdowns of the youth vote in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island. As per usual, expect youth turnout to be somewhere between the 2004 primary share of the electorate and the current share of eligible voters. If trends hold, somewhere about 4 - 5% higher than 2004 primary results is a good guess, though Ohio has been a highly targeted and competitive state in recent years and turnout might be slightly higher there.

Everyone is looking at Texas and Ohio as the make-or-break states for Clinton, and in both states she has a greater than usual advantage among young voters. Young latinos, who have been more likely to support her campaign that than of Sen. Obama, are 33% of the youth electorate in Texas, and young voters as a whole are almost one quarter of the electorate overall. Most polls are projecting a slight Obama win, but they are really all within the margin of error. Leveraging young latinos to chip away Obama's base might be Clinton's key to sneaking out a victory in the Lone Star state.

In Ohio, young voters are less likely than usual to be in college or hold a college degree. Non-college youth have been turning out in far fewer numbers than their college educated peers, but when they do turn out it has tended to be for Clinton, giving her a chance to rack up a higher than expected delegate count in the state.

So Clinton stands to do better in those two states among young voters than she normally does, but the question is does it matter? Most analysts are reporting that the delegate math doesn't favor her, and it's not clear at all that there's any successful path to the nomination at this point barring a massive revolt against Obama among the super delegates.

Warning - all the state named links are to pdf files.

Ohio

2004 Share of Primary Electorate: 9%
2008 Share of the Population: 21%
Total Youth Population: 1,750,179
White non-Hispanic: 83%
Black non-Hispanic: 12%
College Students: 18%

Texas

2004 Share of Primary Electorate: 10%
2008 Share of the Population: 24%
Total Youth Population: 3,557,968
White non-Hispanic: 49%
Black non-Hispanic: 14%
Hispanic/Latino: 33%
College Students: 19%

Vermont

2004 Share of Primary Electorate: 10%
2008 Share of the Population: 20%
Total Youth Population: 94,496
White non-Hispanic: 94%
College Students: 28%

Rhode Island

2004 Share of Primary Electorate: 8%
2008 Share of the Population: 22%
Total Youth Population: 166,116
White non-Hispanic: 82%
Other: 19%
College Students: 24%