The latest numbers from Public Policy Polling and SurveyUSA suggest that Barack Obama’s youth appeal is eroding in North Carolina, though he still has a commanding lead over Hillary Clinton with that demographic. The PPP numbers are more dramatic, but I generally take that firm’s numbers with a grain of salt, for a variety of reasons. Those numbers would be consistent with his narrow loss of the white youth vote in Pennsylvania, though there are several alternate theories that might explain it. North Carolina might shape up as a test of Obama’s social network for turning out the youth vote.
In North Carolina, PPP has him at 57% of the youth vote; SUSA has him at 62%. The margin of error for subgroups will also be larger than for the topline numbers, so these are rough indicia. For comparison, here is a sampling of the exit poll data for Obama’s share of the youth vote in a variety of states: CA (47%); RI (53%); TN (53%); CT (58%); TX (58%); OH (61%); VT (64%); MO (65%); WI (70%); and VA (75%). Thus, the youth numbers for North Carolina may signal trouble down the road, even if the state’s Obama-friendly demographics give Obama an additional cushion in the primary.
(h/t HotAir headlines, where we learn that Obama is also saturation advertising, which carries the same risk of backlash as in Pennsylvania. Plus, I would think that Limbaugh and Hannity listeners are not among Obama’s target demos.)
There are no shortage of Obama ads here in Indiana, and he has a good radio ad as well. Same old, same old – hope, change, blah, blah, blah. After having the two of them here for this week, it seems abundantly clear that they spend minimal time tailoring their message, and prefer to speak to the broad outlines of their national campaign.
The youth vote is largely related to the college vote, and the college vote is largely women. And the young men who aren’t in college don’t have a cellphone on their ear all day to receive pollster calls. They’re more likely to be working. So really this isn’t a case of Obama’s lead slipping so much as a Clinton surge. No big deal, since it’s too little too late anyhow.
Most will not hesitate to vote as a Democrat in November, it’s just that some will be less enthused. And by “less enthused” I don’t mean “Going to vote for McCain” under any circumstances.
Obamamania will fade and the youth vote will go to the next fad.
Besides, its May. It is starting to get warm, you can go outside, and colleges will soon be discharging the bulk of their student bodies for the summer.
JD, do you want a specific pander for Indiana? A FarmAid Memorial? A giant John Mellencamp made of corn and Chevy trucks to greet people to the Midwest? Should he spend his time pointing out the odious liberal fascism of GOP Congressional candidate Tony Zirkle? What do you want? Should Obama make a campaign ad where he turns into an assortment of people, a la Michael Jackson’s Black or White video? I think recreating Bjork’s It’s Oh So Quiet would play better in the small towns of Indiana, myself. If Obama danced with a mailbox, his popularity among the 30-45 hipster and old ladies who love musicals demographic would soar past Evita Clinton’s.
Baracky peaked too soon. Everyone knows what Cloverfield is already. Bet you can’t drink just six. Whatever dude that’s like so 2007.
jon – if it’s an angry mailbox, forget it. on the other hand, a wide open, hopey, changey mailbox, devoid of any mail and ready to receive instructions from the messiah… well, I think you might be on to something.
This sort of metric may also explain some of the troubled comments at some left leaning blogs I scanned. One of the components of the youth vote plays into the demographic of secular liberals. Young voters tend to be more secular (less religious) than older liberal voters and may reflect in a broader way a certain concern with the religious nature of the Wright/Obama kerfuffle.
I wrote a while ago that Obama may, due to his association with TUCC and the subsequent controversy, cause a rising tide of discomfort with secular leftists. Any significant fall in youth numbers may be, in part, a reflection of that concern. Of course, we might also consider the idea that young political preferences tend to be more long lasting, hard core and less subject to critical self examination.
All in all, interesting times.
What’s the difference between Baracky and a normal regular politician? Oh he goes to this church where they hate white people and shit. For reals? No shit he was on tv trying to play it off.
Geez, jon, get some roughage in your diet. Your nuance is clogged up.
The candidates’ Indiana advertising sounds about the same as what I listened to for six, long, long, interminably long weeks in PA. Who takes or doesn’t take PAC money from BIG OIL!!11!!, gas prices, universal health care, struggling working class, get out of Iraq, etc. Hillary emphasizes having a “plan” and “experience” while Barack continues with changitudinous hopylicious unityness with a large dollop of “no more business as usual in Washington.”
And no, jon, I don’t think JD or anyone else here believes that the candiadtes would be doing anything different in Indiana that would speak to the bitter, gun toting, snake handling rubes in the country.
And the young men who aren’t in college don’t have a cellphone on their ear all day to receive pollster calls.
You’re kidding, right?
Where do you live, anyway? Around these parts, roughly 99.995% of young men have cell phones.
Me, I’m just amused that Obama gets a higher percentage of the “youth vote” in hotbeds of progressivism like Tennessee than he does in California.
Wait a minute. You telling me Baracky is swiftboating his own preacher? That’s cold.
jon – Who pissed in your oatmeal?
BJ – To me it seems odd that they make no effort to tailor their message, but I guess it saves on production costs for their ads. The doom and gloom of economic job loss is simply not happening here, but being the good misery pimps that they are, they keep pushing that. IN has almost a billion dollar government surplus at the state level, and we are attracting new manufacturing, and growing in the life sciences arenas. In short, they are pimping misery, which may be the case in some of the other states. Polls show that the economy is #1 for slightly more than 25% of Hoosiers, with LOWER TAXES coming in a very close second. So, Hill and Baracky’s promises to tax the holy hell out of those evil successful people and corporations flies like a lead balloon around here.
But, JD, Pennsylvania is doing well economically (aside from specific regions), and yet voters there identified the economy as their #1 issue as well. Several polls, if I remember correctly, also indicated that PA voters thought the economy was doing very poorly.
Is this a reflection of PA and IN voters’ anxiety about how the govt will next dip into their wallets? Or, is it possible that the more the Dem candidates tell voters that the economy is crumbling, they begin to believe it, whether it coincides with their perceptions or not?
Before the Pennsylvania primary, in fact, the Obama campaign ran radio ads during Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s programs.
I didn’t say that young men didn’t have cellphones, just that their phones don’t seem to be held against their ear canals 24/7 as they often are with young women.
SEXIST!!!eleventy1!
;-)
#14 Which proves, like blogs, they’ll take advertising from almost anyone!
Money – the Great Uniter.
I didn’t say that young men didn’t have cellphones, just that their phones don’t seem to be held against their ear canals 24/7
‘Cause, you know, that’s the only way a call from a pollster would ge through, right?
Jee-zus.
It would be, for that demographic. Why would any college kid agree to take a landline in his name when anyone – even at a kegger – could pick it up? Pay as you go for the college demographic, getting the bums to pay their share for the electric and gas is hard enough, let alone “Who called Slovakia?”
I think SBP’s getting at the fact that cell phones ring even when not held to the ear.
Mine does.
Or is that a malfunction? Is it not supposed to do that? ;-)