Obama Wins Youth Vote

Last night the epic love story between Barack Obama and the youngest generation of voters finally got its fairy tale ending. After months of reaching out to the population both digitally and in person, yesterday teens, college students and twentysomethings finally got the chance to answer back to their chosen candidate. And that they did. With gusto.

In a record turnout at the polls, nearly two-thirds of the youth vote came out in support of Obama. MSNBC reports this as the highest share of the youth vote obtained by any candidate since exit polls began reporting results by age in 1976.

So much for fears that the so-called slacker generation wouldn’t come through. More from the MSNBC article:

“Consistently throughout the country in key swing states, Obama is outperforming John Kerry’s performance (with young voters) from four years ago by two to three times the margin,” John Della Volpe [the director of polling for the Harvard University Institute of Politics] says, noting that on Tuesday night in Indiana, Obama was losing to McCain in every important demographic — except young voters. “In many states, the only significant electorate that Obama is winning is young people.”

A clear demonstration of what a motivated young population can achieve, Obama’s victory is one shared by Generation We.