The Youth Group in the 2010 Midterm Elections

As the halfway point of his first presidential term drew nearer, Barack Obama entered the campaigning fray, seeking to recapture the 18 to 29 year old demographic that helped to tip the scale in his favor two years ago. Throughout the month, Obama continued to travel from battleground state to battleground state, and urged Democratic candidates to campaign towards the youth demographic, hoping to once again rally the record breaking 52% of youth voters that turned out for his victory in 2008.

Still, despite Obama and the Democratic Party’s best efforts to revitalize the youth vote that gave the Left a substantial victory in 2008, on November 2, 2010, it was the Republican party that emerged victorious, managing to recapture majority in the House of Representatives with 239 seats, and effectively loosening the majority grip of the Democrats in the Senate, with a respectable 46 seats to the Left’s 51. Just as the youth’s presence at the ballot boxes influenced the outcome of the 2008 Presidential Elections, in turn, did the youth’s lack of presence in the 2010 Midterm Elections result in one of the largest shifts in power in our nation’s history?

Though the 2008 Presidential Election saw an increase of 2 million in new youth voters, this year’s midterm elections only saw 20.9% of the youth vote heading back out to the ballots. According to political analyst Kelli Goff, this lull in participation—in not only the youth, but in all demographics—is not anything new, but follows the usual pattern of a lower turnout during midterm elections.

In spite of the fact that lower voter turnout is common for midterm elections, it can’t be denied that there was a marked slip in enthusiasm and energy within the youth demographic between the 2008 Presidential Election and the 2010 Midterm Election. Says Goff, “I think the primary difference in this particular election is that more young voters who voted in 2008 were motivated specifically by Obama, but he wasn’t on the ballot this year so some of them felt less motivated to turn out.”

Historically, the enthusiasm of the youth vote has fluctuated through the decades in direct correlation to either the current issues of the election year or the charisma and ability of the candidates to reach out to the youth vote. In the 1960s, for instance, the youth demographic was very active in reaction to the Vietnam War and the draft. In 1996, President Bill Clinton was able to mobilize the youth and start a particular interest in electoral politics the years he ran. Following after, Obama’s 2008 campaign started another revolution within the youth to vote.

“A certain energy is infused when youth is involved,” says Deva Woodley, a professor at The New School for Social Research who focuses on the historical patterns of the youth vote, “It creates a cultural movement. Obama created a cultural movement. He was used as a figurehead.”



Indeed, the 2008 Presidential Election was rife with pop culture media influence, as celebrities like Oprah and Robert DeNiro clamored to show their support for Obama and donate to his campaign. With Shepard Fairey’s iconic Obama portrait becoming the viral symbol for the campaign, 2008 also became the most successful example thus far of how social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook, and the technology of the Internet can become powerful tools for reaching out to the young demographic. These connections made Obama seem more cool and relatable, as if he really was just a mouse click or wall post.

This year, you cannot go to any candidate for either party’s websites without finding a link to their Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. With 98% of the 18-29 demographic using social networking sites, the 2010 Midterm Elections saw an increase in the userbase of political candidates, yet despite this number boost and the trending topic status of the hash tag #ivoted, this was not indicative of the level of enthusiasm the Midterm Elections seemed to produce.

While Obama still has his supporters, many of them didn’t even bother to come out and vote, citing various reasons from being too busy, not even being aware of the elections, and not believing a vote would even count.

Andrew Higgins, 22, of Detroit, Michigan says he didn’t vote in the Midterm Elections because he didn’t know when the actual voting would occur, and yet when asked if he voted in the Presidential Election he responds with a much more enthusiastic, “Hell yeah, that was a big deal.” To him, voting does matter but not many people do it unless it’s for a big election.

Another 21 year old male in Chinatown agrees with Higgins’ sentiment, “I think it was the hype during the presidential elections a couple years ago that really got me to vote. Now, I don't really see what it was all for.”

According to William John Cox, a political analyst, this apathy to the midterm election and feeling of powerlessness in the election may stem from the financial issues that continue to plague the country, causing more and more young people to live at home. They feel like Obama had promised them CHANGE in the 2008 elections, but he still hasn’t delivered on the promise.

In a PBS political analysis report, Rock the Vote executive director Heather Smith emphasized how Obama’s 2008 campaign allowed young voters to feel that they could be directly involved in shaping and changing the nation positively, which ultimately brought them to the polls. but “afterwards, they felt like, where did our leader go, right? What can we do? And so I think that [the youth] can be reengaged and reenergized. But someone needs to push that path forward”