The Swing Has Fascinated Political Operatives Majority Of Young White Voters Too Backed Him
As India, with one of the youngest demographic profiles in the world, gears up for another round of geriatric leadership, it turns out that US President-elect Barack Obama has been substantially powered into the White House by the youth vote.
Analyses of the voting patterns in US Presidential elections 2008 show 66% of voters under age 30 preferred the 47-year old Obama while just 32% favored John McCain, 72. The margin was 25% more than the 9-point youth vote advantage John Kerry had over President Bush in the 2004 election.
According to political operatives who have dissected last week’s voting pattern, Barack Obama’s share of youth vote is nearly four times the size of John Kennedy’s lead with the group in 1960, which led the latter to famously declare in his inaugural address that “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”
Around 2.2 million more young people—accounting for 18% of the electorate— voted in this election, which is only a slight increase from the 17% in 2004. But if the vote had stayed along the same lines as in 2004, then Obama’s margin of victory in terms of popular votes would have been only about 2 points instead of around 5 points, according to one study.
But for the youth vote, Obama might not have won 73 electoral votes from Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Indiana, according to an analysis by the blog thenextright.com. In other words: Obama’s youth margin= 73 electoral votes.
Obama also got stronger support from African-Americans (95%) than Kerry did in 2004 (88%). Turn-out of African-Americans went up from 12% to 13%
Overall, based on initial numbers, it is estimated that over 133 million people turned out to vote on Tuesday—11 million more than voted in 2004— producing the highest turnout rate in 44 years (62.5%), which compares favorably with the turnout in India. By way of comparison, the turnout rate in 1996 was just over 49%.
Significantly, the share of white voters, who accounted for 81% of all voters in 2000, declined to 74% this year, with increases in African-American, Hispanic, and Asian vote share. Obama scored handsomely even among Hispanics, squashing speculation that they might not vote for an African-American.
But it is the swing in the youth vote that has fascinated political operatives. Even a majority of young white voters backed Obama.
While no Democratic presidential nominee had won more than 45% of young whites in at least three decades, Obama won 54% of young white voters, according to one study. He beat McCain 52-45 among white youth without a college degree and 57-41 among those with a degree. He also beat McCain among young white women without a degree (54-45) and young white college-educated woman (61-38).
“In other words, never in post-war American politics have youth voted so differently than older generations as they did in 2008,” the blog Politico.com observed. According to the political pundit Ariana Huffington, the US is witnessing “a tremendous ideological shift among young voters—one that could reshape our politics for decade to come.”
From 1976 through 2004, young voters basically supported the same candidate as older voters in most elections, she said. During that time, the average gap in presidential choice between young voters and the overall electorate was only 1.8%. In 2008, that gap was 28%, with Obama winning by 6%—but carrying the youth vote by 34%.
These developments in the US come at time when India, which has a national median age of 24.9 with around 70% of its population under the age of 30, faces a geriatric leadership in the upcoming parliamentary election. BJP leader L.K.Advani, who is 81, is the projected leader of the opposition alliance, while incumbent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is 76. Most key world leaders are in their 50s, and Obama, at 47, will be one of the youngest.
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