The Kids Love Sanders Even More Than They Loved Obama [View all]

[n2doc]

Anyone watching the huge crowds of rapturous young people at Bernie Sanders rallies this year might be forgiven for experiencing a flash of déjà vu. Those crowds look a lot like those drawn by Barack Obama in 2008. But the comparison may actually understate the intensity of the Kiddie Bern in 2016. As Jeff Stein reports at Vox, our best evidence is that Sanders is outdoing Obama's '08 record among young voters by both percentage and total votes:

A new analysis from Tufts University shows that Sanders has now surpassed Barack Obama's 2008 Democratic primary totals among young people in the 25 states where we can draw a comparison — whether you count by raw vote total or percentage of the overall vote share.

According to the Tufts analysis, in 2008 Obama defeated Clinton among under-30 voters by a 60-35 margin. So far Sanders is beating Clinton by a 71-28 margin. Obama racked up 2.2 million youth votes in the 25 states included in the study. Sanders has won an estimated 2.4 million in those states, with California, New Jersey, and a scattering of smaller states still to vote. Based on recent polling in California (the Field Poll has Sanders leading Clinton 75-10 among under-30s), it doesn't look like Sanders's domination in this demographic is going to change before the final bell.

What separates the two Clinton opponents most conspicuously is that Obama won the nomination while Sanders is almost certainly going to lose. So in 2008 the youth enthusiasm of the primaries smoothly rolled over into a relatively high turnout of under-30 voters in the general election, with very big margins, making the Kidz an important component of what came to be know as the Obama Coalition. It's another question altogether whether they'll turn out for Hillary Clinton. As a two-time big-time primary loser among under-30 voters, Clinton has her work cut out for her in matching the appeal of the cool 'n' hip Obama and the eccentric old socialist Sanders. She might want to think about making her college tuition and/or debt initiative a little more generous, and coming out clearly for marijuana legalization.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/06/kids-love-sanders-even-more-than-obama.html

If Sanders had gotten the AA support that Obama did, we wouldn't even be talking about HRC anymore. She would have conceded in April. And the 'kids' aren't going to be fooled by some last minute pandering.