A new poll by the Center for Information and Research of Civic Learning and Engagement, CIRCLE, found Obama enjoys 17-point edge on Romney among voters under 30, a finding consistent with the 19 point lead for President Obama announced last week by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University in their study.
CIRCLE polled the same group of 1,109 Americans aged 18-29 in June and July and again between Oct. 12 and Oct. 23. Mr. Obama is ahead 52 percent to 35 percent among likely voters in this age bracket, with 8.8 percent undecided and the rest planning to vote for someone else. The margin of error was calculated at +/- 4.2 percentage points.
And these young people are becoming more enthusiastic about voting in the Oct survey than the June and July surveys. In the earlier surveys only 48% saying they were "extremely likely" to vote, but Circle found 54.6% of those survery in October now saying they are "extremely likely" to vote. This is still apparently down from the historic 66% youth turnout in 2008, although, the article does not specify the exact relationship between their likely voter screens and actual turnout in 2008.
I was a little surprised that only 15.1% said they had been contacted by a political party during this election.
This could be symptomatic of campaign strategies rather than voter apathy. By October, only 15.1 percent said they had been contacted by either candidate’s party — up just 3 points from July. Most of those contacted heard from Mr. Obama’s campaign.
Meanwhile, support for Mr. Romney is slightly down — from 36.9 percent to 35.1 percent. Some 59.7 percent of younger voters say they are disappointed or angry with the candidate, and only 9.4 percent said they admired him.
Ms. Acker-Lyons, the studies director, said that 72.6% have "the power to change things" with is apparently up from Gen-X, and interpreted as a stronger sense of community involvement.
If we could just get the under 30 potential voters back up to their 2008 voter participation rates we could make this a landslide election.