Below the fold is a speech I gave on November 1 at the annual convention of the grantees of Learn & Serve America, the federal program that supports community service tied to education. I used the opportunity to make some pretty broad points about evaluation (both pro and con) and about civic renewal in America.
Author Archives: Peter Levine
youth turnout sharply up
Washington, DC ? An estimated ten million young Americans under the age of 30 voted in Tuesday?s midterm elections, an increase of at least two million compared to 2002, according to exit polls and early published tallies of votes that are likely to increase as additional precincts and ballots are included. The preliminary data were analyzed by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), which is the nation?s premier research organization on the civic and political engagement of young Americans.
The estimated youth turnout rate or percentage of young eligible voters who cast votes also jumped from 20% in 2002 to at least 24% in 2006, an increase of at least four percentage points. Voters under the age of 30 accounted for 13% of all voters, which is an increase of about 2 points compared to the 2002 midterm elections.
?This is an extraordinary turnout for young voters,? said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. ?In a year of rising turnout, young people led the way?repeating the pattern that we saw in 2004. Youth were an especially high proportion of voters in Montana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri. Nationwide, in House races, 61% of young people voted for Democratic candidates–the highest proportion for any age group.?
For more, visit CIRCLE.
early exit poll results (because I can’t resist)
Based on the national exit poll and some simple math, it appears that voters went for the Democrats over the Republicans in all U.S. House races by 54.6% versus 44%–which should translate into substantial gains for the Dems. For the Democrats, by far the strongest group was the under-30s: 61% versus 37%.
youth turnout in ’06
This is the place to come to find out how (and whether) young people vote. CIRCLE calculates the youth turnout after each national election, and we’ll put estimates on the CIRCLE site as soon as we can tomorrow morning. I will then comment here.
We calculate youth turnout by starting with the national exit polls’ estimate of the proportion of voters who were young, multiplying by state election officials’ count of all the ballots counted as of Nov. 8, and dividing by the Census Bureau’s estimate of the number of American residents who are young adults. The result is just an estimate, but that’s all we can ever have when we look at turnout by demographic groups. Besides, in past years, this method has closely tracked the results of Census’ November current population survey, which is the only alternative source.
Getting the news out was important in ’04. As many readers of this blog know, the Associated Press misreported the turnout statistics last time. The AP reporter looked only at the percentage of voters who were young and concluded that youth turnout had fallen, when in fact it had surged by 11 points in a banner year for participation. I called her but she resisted my entreaties. DailyKos and other bloggers picked up the AP story as an explanation of Kerry’s defeat. (Young people were supposed to turn out for Kerry; Kerry lost; ergo, young people must have stayed home. Which was bad logic, since Kerry’s brightest news was his strong support from under-30s.)
Once the AP and the blogosphere had the wrong story, it built on itself. I watched a TV reporter ask a political scientist who shall remain nameless, “Why do you think the youth vote fizzled?” He replied with a long explanation about low trust in government, apathy, ignorance, blah, and blah. That story teaches a lesson about not accepting the factual premises of reporters’ questions unless you know them to be true.
This year, I am somewhat worried that any real positive news about youth turnout will be mangled again, because reporters will compare ’06 to ’04 (which is unfair) or will again be confused by the difference between youth turnout and youth voters as a share of all voters. Still, we’ve done our best with press releases and advisories and are willing to stay up all night to obtain vote tallies so we can have a turnout estimate on our site ASAP tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, we have detailed historical data on youth voting, including graphs for each state, here.
what to do with a majority
There is a raging debate about how the Democrats should use a House majority, if they win one on Tuesday. On the left, some are framing the question as whether the Democrats will have the “courage” to tackle the Bush administration by conducting high-profile, aggressive investigations. (See comments here, or Paul Krugman.) In my view, it would take no “courage” at all to yield the House agenda to Henry Waxman and his investigations of procurement scandals and the like. “Courage” would mean passing a just budget or a bill to reduce Americans’ consumption of coal and oil. But that would require focus, discipline, time in committees and on the floor of Congress, public attention and support, and partnerships with key congressional Republicans. If Democrats try to drive all the public attention to scandals, they will have no chance of pushing really significant legislation through the House.
Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, conservatives can be basically satisfied with the fundamentals of American politics. Politicians of both parties are embarrassed to mention raising taxes, even if the alternative is to borrow money from the next generation. None of them seriously wants to cut the incarceration rate or end the ?war on drugs.? They are almost all afraid to criticize the military brass for anything it might do.
If I were a conservative, I would be hoping that a Democratic Congress would concentrate on the malfeasance of the Bush administration. In the worst case (from my imaginary conservative perspective), the Dems would uncover some really bad behavior that Americans don?t already know about. Fine–in that case I would join the Democrats in outrage against Bush and back a new set of Republican leaders in ?08. All the fundamentals would still be in place.
In the best case (again from a conservative perspective), the Democrats would find nothing startlingly new, would waste two years, and would reinforce a reputation for lacking vision and competence.
My biggest fear, if I were a conservative, would be that the Democrats would largely ignore Bush and pass a series of smart, aggressive, progressive bills to help working families, ameliorate the sitation in the Middle East, strengthen education, and tackle oil dependence. Then my guys would have to filibuster or veto good bills, or else allow them to pass and thereby move the country somewhat leftward. By ?08, Democrats would have a reputation for vision and competence and my side would be in real trouble.
I’ll bet that the Democrats will not allow investigations to dominate their agenda or the news coverage, because they understand the need to look competent and forward-looking. They know that Bush is already history. However, I’ll also bet (sadly) that they will fail to pass courageous, progressive legislation, precisely because public opinion is still basically conservative on fiscal questions, and liberals haven’t figured out how to change that.
(See Rich Harwood’s “Election Day hubris” for a related point.)