A Diverse Young Coalition Behind Obama

Additional analysis of exit polls from November 4th confirms that young voters were the most diverse group of the electorate, with larger percentages identifying as Hispanic, African-American and gay or lesbian than the voting population as a whole. However, a major discrepancy remains between young people with a college education and those without. This analysis-- carried out by CIRCLE, a civic research group-- found that 70 percent of young voters who went to the polls had attended college, even though only 57 percent of Americans under 30 have gone to college. Similarly, only 6 percent of young voters failed to graduate high school, while 14 percent of the entire youth population falls in this category.

There are some obvious reasons for this. CIRCLE has done extensive reports on the state of civic education in American high schools, finding that civic classes were spotty in most public schools, and particularly those in poorer and minority areas. At the same time, they found that individuals who had taken civic education in high school were more likely to be registered to vote, more likely to volunteer, and more likely to trust in the political process. At the campaign level, young people are much easier to reach on campus, leading campaigns to overwhelmingly target college students. Without a central meeting place like a campus, it takes a lot more effort by campaigns to reach out to non-college young people-- something campaigns need to work on.

But despite this discrepancy, young voters at every education level threw their support behind Barack Obama. CIRCLE's analysis confirms what we already knew-- that Obama drew support from young people across all sorts of demographic lines, including young people who identify as conservatives. The Democratic party as a whole also benefited this election-- more young people now identify as Democrats (45 percent) than the population as a whole (39 percent). Most telling, it seems, is this figure: half of young voters said they would be "excited" by an Obama win, compared to 30 percent of all voters and just 20 percent of voters over 60. Obama has certainly captured this generation, and I'll be writing more in the coming weeks about how their involvement will play out post-election.

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