ATTENTION Youth Voters

According to the authors of our textbook, Controversies in Voting Behavior, there was party realignment that involved the movement of “younger voters toward the Republicans between 1980 and 1984 due to attraction to Reagan’s leadership” (Niemi, p.328). Although this youth registration was only a small piece of what some consider a realignment of the 80’s, it did show that a candidate could draw a greater proportion of newly registered young voters. This may have been through a combination of his message and his charismatic appeal to the public.
In the current election, Barack Obama is heavily courting the young vote and using campaign strategies to increase young voter registration and turnout. According to the article “Obama’s Youth Vote Triumph” in Time magazine by David Von Drehle (Jan. 4, 2008), “Obama's youth-oriented campaign drew under-25 voters to Thursday's Iowa caucuses in record numbers, and these first-time voters gave him most of his margin of victory.” Obama won 57% of the youth vote in Iowa, compared to 11% for Clinton. This also created an increase in young and newly registered Democratic voters. Another article, from the Washington Post on January 10, 2008, titled, “Generation Y: Ready to Rock the 2008 Election, reports that younger voters are attracted to Obama because he “speaks a language they understand, using "we" and "us," giving the image of a country undivided by social class, race or political parties”. Obama is known for his motivational speeches, often quoting Martin Luther King Jr., and using the "fierce urgency of now" to explain his need for change (“Generation Y”).
According to the Time article, “Turnout among the youngest slice of the electorate more than doubled from 2004, when Howard Dean's intense campaign on college campuses produced far more modest results. This was part of an overall surge in Democratic participation — but while overall Democratic turnout jumped 90%, the number of young Democrats participating soared 135%“ (Drehle).

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1700525,00.html
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0110gen-y0110-ON.html
Niemi, Richard G and Herbrt F. Weisberg. Controversies in Voting Behavior, Third Edition.Washington, D.C.: C Q Press, 1993.