We at CIRCLE provide detailed data on young voters, including demographic information and voting trends for all 50 states (accessible through the map on our homepage), in-depth research studies on young people and politics, and a recent overview report based on our own typology. Meanwhile, the Harvard Institute of Politics is contributing up-to-date national polls and focus groups in Iowa. Their latest poll (PDF) looks technically solid to me. It contains some interesting findings:

• Eleven percent of young people support the Tea Party; 21% support Occupy Wall Street. Assuming that those two groups are largely composed of different people, that means that up to 32% of young Americans support an extra-partisan political movement. In 2008, youth activism was strong, but the most unusual aspect was massive support for one official political campaign. I think if youth activism proves important in 2012, it will be about young people participating through a variety of channels, not just presidential campaigns. Lest we get carried away with the potential of the insurgent movements, just 2% of respondents say they have been part of an OWS demonstration and 6% say they are following the movement “closely.”
• One finding  seems to be attracting media attention today: only 30% of young people expect Obama to win, and 36% expect him to lose. I am not clear why this is interesting, unless confidence in his reelection is correlated with turnout. In 2008, most Obama supporters I knew did not believe he would win, but they worked and voted for him.
• Barack Obama beats the generic Republican candidate as well as all named GOP candidates, albeit with many undecided. (In fact, the undecideds almost tie the Obama supporters in the generic matchup.)
• Mitt Romney leads among young Republicans (at 23%). Ron Paul is next at 16%. The Ron Paul boomlet could matter to the nominating race. A recent Public Policy poll finds Paul actually leading among young Iowa Republicans. But that doesn’t mean that the typical young person supports Paul. Obama backers are far more numerous; they just don’t get to vote in the Republican primaries.
• Young people’s top issue priorities are all economic. That’s also true of older people, according to other surveys. Never in my decade of working on youth and politics have I seen a big gap between young and older people on issues. That means, by the way, that candidates don’t need separate messages or agendas to appeal to young people; they must simply include them in their outreach.