In my election round-up entry Wednesday I mentioned that I was disapointed in the youth voter turnout. Given the way most of the media has been talking about it, I was starting to feel that it might have cost Kerry the election.
I was wrong, and I couldn't be happier. It turns out that the youth vote did come out a lot better than everyone is talking about. According to the Boston Globe voter turnout in the 18-29 age group was up 10 percent over 2000 and more than 20 million voters under the age of 30 voted. The youth vote swung towards Kerry by 54% to Bush's 44%. That makes the under 30 age group the only Kerry won.
A diary at the Daily Kos has a map that shows what the electoral college would have looked like if the election was up to the under 30 voters. Kerry would have gotten 375 electoral votes to Bush's 163. Also noted in this diary was the fact that in battleground states (where most of the get out the vote groups focused their efforts) turnout amound the 18-29 voters was over 60%!
So, congratulations to all the youth voter projects, you got young voters out in great numbers to vote. Now let's shoot for 64% in 2008!
Map after the jump
Have to be careful with this one. The map is based upon exit polls, which turned out to be, well, wrong. So I'm a little unclear whether the methodology that went into making this map is sound. We need the actual election numbers, not the exit poll numbers.
Posted by: The One True b!X at November 5, 2004 02:46 PMThis is a picky little comment, but I don't like the idea of calling people old enough to vote "youth." It implies that they don't really know what they're doing because of being young adults. Think Hyde and his "youthful indiscretion." Young adult voters sounds clunky. There's got to be a better word.
Posted by: al at November 6, 2004 07:23 AMjust thought i'd share this.
http://chrisevans3d.com/files/iq.htm
Posted by: Miss Shigatsu at November 8, 2004 05:24 AMJust so everybody knows, the IQ thing is almost surely a hoax. Even if it isn't, I am always highly suspicious of IQ tests, since they tend to test the ability to take a standardized test more than intellegince.
Posted by: Noah Brimhall at November 8, 2004 07:23 AM