Candidates Not yet Savvy to Youth Vote: In 8 years, Gen Y will make up third of U.S. electorate

NYT/Reuters: Candidates Not yet Savvy to Youth Vote: Survey
By REUTERS
Published: March 9, 2007

BOSTON (Reuters) - Politicians failed to tap the youth vote even after record turnout in the 2004 U.S. presidential election and will need the Internet to draw this block, a Harvard University survey showed on Friday.

Young Americans were largely ignored by political campaigns during the 2006 congressional election, but their ballots helped decide two tight U.S. Senate races for Democrats, said John Della Volpe, polling director at Harvard's Institute of Politics.

"Despite record turnout of the youth vote in 2004, it was not a major target of most political campaigns in 2006,'' Della Volpe said. "Anyone who doesn't believe how powerful young voters are should speak to former Senator George Allen.''

The Virginia Republican was unseated by newcomer Jim Webb, a former Marine with a son serving in Iraq, who relied on heavier turnout among students in Charlottesville and Norfolk counties and helped the Democrats gain control of the Senate.

Energized by the Iraq war, more young people voted in last year's congressional election than they had in at least 20 years. In the 2004 presidential vote, a record 42 percent of Americans under the age of 30 cast ballots, compared to 29 percent in the 2000 White House election, the survey noted....

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The "Generation Y'' of Americans born from 1977 to 1994 -- shaped by the September 11 attacks, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina -- in eight years will make up a third of the U.S. electorate....

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-politics-youth.html