[lbo-talk] youth turnout

Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Mon Jun 23 10:10:08 PDT 2008



>>> Doug Henwood
Yesterday, I quoted an analysis by Gary Langer, ABC's "poobah of polling," reporting that the black turnout in the primaries was up proportionately with everyone else's - turnout in all groups was up, so the black share of the vote was in line with past averages. I wrote Langer to ask about the youth vote. Here's his response:

"Doug - Under-30s made up 14 percent of 08 Dem primary voters per our

exit polls. That's exactly the average in data from 1976-2004. That said, there has been election-to-election variability, and 04 and 00 were low points, so 08 was up from the most recent past."

Sooooo....this line about how Obama has energized the young and the black isn't really all that true. Wish I knew this the other night, so I could have responded to Gary Younge's claims with a bit of fact- checking.

^^^^^ CB: However, above you say Black turnout was up in the primaries. That fact could indicate Black people _were_ energized by O. That Black vote was up the same percentage as the rest of the vote doesn't necessarily mean that Black vote was not up _because_ of enthusiasm for O.

As to young people, you would have to get stats on what percentage of young voters voted for O. If it was bigger than percentage that voted for the others ( which the television poll commentators said repeatedly during the primaries) that would seem to indicate he "energized" them too.

The stats you mention above are not adequate to conclude O has not so-called energized youth or Black people. Also, the energized youth who made a critical difference were his campaign workers, who of course were a small number relative to the overall numbers voting.

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