Youth take-aways from Tuesday's vote

Courtesy of CIRCLE's tracking of 18-29 voters in the Super Tuesday states, we can glean two important realities for the youth vote for the GOP and into the general election.

1) Young people expanded their political support network - not exclusively flocking to Paul.

Combining the five Super Tuesday states in which exit polls were conducted with adequate youth samples, CIRCLE estimates that 88,000 total youth voted for Rep. Ron Paul, with about 88,000 who voted for former Sen. Rick Santorum, about 86,000 for former Gov. Mitt Romney, and about 43,000 for former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

2) President Obama continues to rivals the GOP in terms of the excitement he generated in 2008. As a candidate, Obama galvanized more than twice as many youth as the top three 2012 GOP candidates combined have.


This is why this year's youth vote is so crucial: Obama will exploit the Republican enthusiasm gap if he can reconnect with two-thirds of the 18-29 demographic.


Wesley, what are your thoughts?