« What stories are worth reporting | Main | Iowa thoughts »
January 20, 2004
young voters in Iowa
We're working on a press release to report that young people (ages 18-29) quadrupled their turnout in the Iowa Caucuses, compared to 2000. They voted at considerably higher rates than the 30-44 age group and represened almost as big a proportion of Caucus goers (17%) as of adult Iowa citizens (20%). If youth always participated at this rate, the 40 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 would be a major voting bloc.
There's another lesson for those of us who are interested in youth participation: young people may vote, but they aren't predictable. Slate quotes one Dean precinct captain who said, "I think if we could blame [Dean's loss] on anyone, blame it on the 18- to 25-year-olds, because they were nonexistent." Actually, they existed, and they turned out, but 35% of them went for Kerry and only 25% for Dean.
Posted by peterlevine at January 20, 2004 03:38 PM
Comments
Post a comment
This blog is under attack from comment spammers, who are causing a problem for the server. I believe I can block them by upgrading to a recent version of MoveableType. However, I do not have time to do that until late December. Therefore, I have temporarily disabled comments. Please feel free to email me feedback at plevine@umd.edu.