Under 30 Voter Turnout Lower In Midterm Elections

The youth vote that was so important for Barack Obama in 2008 failed to turn out in any great numbers for these mid-term elections. People under 30 made up only 9% of the vote last night, compared to 19% in 2008. WNPR’s Harriet Jones watched the results come in with a group of students at Connecticut College in New London.

About 20 die-hard Democrats gathered in a dorm common room on the Conn College campus for an election night party. Senior Kristen Tamburro expressed the mixture of hope and trepidation in the room early on.

“With a few precincts reporting, it’s looking OK for Connecticut, so we’re hoping the Democrats can keep up their margins right now.”

Tamburro and several other students were here in 2008 when Obama-mania swept campus. Susanna Sprague says that election was a very different experience.

“I felt the whole campus was listening to Obama. I remember walking around and you could look in people’s windows and everyone had the McCain Obama debates going on. People found Obama to be so refreshing and so charismatic, and there’s no-one to really get behind in this case.”

That may be typical for a mid-term, but senior Alicia Rae says there has also been some disillusionment in the last two years.

“Legislation since then hasn’t been targeted towards the youth. With healthcare being pushed through--it’s not exactly relevant to us. Many students feel that they’re not being heard or they’re not wanted.”

She would have liked to see education and the environment take center stage. Matthew Mitchell echoes that.

“I feel like a big thing on campus is also gay rights and the don’t ask don’t tell quagmire that’s going on, and that’s something very big. 2008 was a lot of aspirations for quick solutions for things, and we can’t give them quick solutions.”

But Maura Hallisey says there may be a silver lining for younger voters in these midterms.  

“I think this might be a turning point actually for young voters to kind of get back into it. Because in two years we will have another presidential election. I think we might be seeing a kind of a turn, a recognition that every election matters – every vote matters.”

Democrats will calculating ways to recapture that youthful enthusiasm once again in two years time.

For WNPR, I'm Harriet Jones.