Newswise — In advance of President Obama's Thursday, October 14, MTV town hall to address young voters, students at American University in Washington, D.C., (ranked the most politically active in the nation by The Princeton Review) analyzed polling data about young voters from a special run provided by CBS News from the CBS/New York Times poll conducted September 10 through the 14.
The analysis was a class project for graduate students taking CBS political analyst Dotty Lynch's Research Methods in Communication course at American University. Lynch is a renowned pollster and an executive in residence at AU's School of Communication.
The analysis shows that young people’s engagement and interest in the 2010 midterm election is lacking when compared to those of older age groups, but that like older age groups, young voters want new representation in Congress.
The full analysis and methodology are available here: http://www.american.edu/soc/americanforum/upload/FINAL-2010-Polling-Report-on-young-people-and-2010-elections.pdf
Findings include:• 15 percent of young voters polled say they are paying “a lot” of attention to the 2010 midterm elections, compared to 50 percent of senior citizens polled.*• The majority of registered young voters (55 percent) say they will “definitely vote” in the 2010 election, and an additional 33 percent say they will “probably vote.” • 48 percent of young voters are “more enthusiastic” and 39 percent are “less enthusiastic” to cast their votes in November.• 56 percent of young voters disapprove of Congress' job performance.• 45 percent of young voters disapprove of Democrats' job performance in Congress; 41 percent approve.• 59 percent of young voters disapprove of Republicans' job performance in Congress; 25 percent approve.• 47 percent of young voters said a candidate's support of health care reform would not make them more or less likely to vote for the candidate; 32 percent said they would be more likely to vote for and 19 percent said they would be less likely to vote against a candidate for supporting health care reform.
* Interestingly, young people are twice as likely (16 percent) as older groups to say they don’t know or have no opinion of the job Congress is doing, so there is room to educate and persuade young voters.
The analysis also found:• Young voters diverge from older Americans in their favor of bigger government and more services (more young people in favor.)• Partisan politics dissatisfies young and old voters alike, but young voters are less angry at Washington. • Young people support addition of a third party, but have few opinions on the Tea Party. • President Obama’s job performance approval ratings were highest among young adults (ages 18-29), but his 2010 approval rating among young people is down 9 points from 2009. • Roughly half of young voters feel Obama hasn’t made real progress in fixing the economy, but more young voters feel Obama is doing more to fix the economy than Republicans in Congress are• 56 percent of young voters now approve of Obama’s handling of Afghanistan.
The analysis was released Wednesday, October 6, during American University's American Forum: Is Your Vote Up for Grabs?, which focused on young people and the 2010 midterm elections. More information about the American Forum is available here: http://www.american.edu/soc/americanforum/.
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