all you "young" voters, ages 18-19, who did you vote for? are the estimates right, that most of you voted for kerry? or was it the winner bush?
I think a lot of America thought that the youth vote would go to Kerry! Problem was... a lot of America's youth really did check out Kerry's record and didn't buy the "Vote or Die" black hip/hop matra.... some of our young voters are smarter than they look and they really did investigate Kerry's record! They didn't like it! IntheNet Bush/Cheney in 2004 GO DC United
The youth vote didn't really show up. Those who did most likely voted for Kerry (I'm guessing by a 60-40 margin).
From the reports on XM radio this morning it looks like they hardly voted at all. They said less than 16% of the 18-29 registered voters bothered to show up. That's some real apathy. MTV's Rock the Vote my ass.
They had their chance. I'd happily move to another country if by some miracle a draft is passed, because I just fit into the age bracket.
Actually if you look at the data the 18-29 demographic was very pro-Kerry. Thing is that the Demographic only represents appox 20-24% of the total vote and those gains were wiped out bu the 65+ demographic in equal size and %. This election was closest and decided by the middle aged demo. I think it is very encouraging that more young people voted in this election that any before. I myself thought Vote or Die was stupid, but if it got people out to vote than usally don't regardless of who they voted for than it was for the good of the nation.
I'm 19 and I voted for Kerry. I know all my close friends voted and 16 out of the 20 people in my Microeconomics discussion yesterday said they voted. I was also in a 20 minute long line of college students to vote yesterday. So I don't know about the country as a whole but around me atleast many 18-21 year olds voted.
20 and I voted for Bush. I would suspect that most young people (altho I would reduce that yo 18-24, you can't really lump in 29-year-olds with 18-year-olds for the purposes of this argument IMO) voted for Kerry, but not nearly as overwhelmingly as the Democrats thought we would.
CNN last night said the 18-24 vote was about the same as it was in 2000 (i.e. weak). They brought up good points, though: 1. 18-24 yr. olds don't typically have kids 2. 18-24 yr. olds don't typically own a home 3. 18-24 yr. olds move a lot, and have problems registering One of the commentators: 4. 18-24 yr. olds aren't smart enough I would guess that a large percentage of the 18-24 yr. olds that did vote are in college, where GOTV drives are prevalent. The 18-24 yr. olds were largely pro-Kerry. I think the worrysome issue, is that young, left-leaning campaign workers are being continually devastated by these losses. Speaking as someone who worked pretty hard in '98 only to lose, it really sucks to have your hopes dashed. After 4 straight defeats of the left, I'm pretty damn cynical. I think a lot of the 18-24 yr. old Kerry supporters are going to start moving that direction too.
I'm 21 and voted for Kerry, but something to keep in mind is that a lot of people in that age group voted via absentee ballot so that has to have some impact on the turn out numbers.
18-29 is such a large range in my mind to predict who they voted for because such a change takes place in someone during those 11 years. When I was 18 it was all about what my parents talked to me about, and in turn they helped form my views. As I got older and learned to educate myself about the important issues to me in college and afterwards my opinions certainly changed.