There is a lot of talk about young voter turnout and about Superdelegates these days.  Young people have emerged as a critical bloc of voters.  The media, candidates and many naysayers of the youth vote are finally giving them and the issues they care about attention on the campaign trail. 

It got me thinking—are the young Superdelegates following the trends of young voters and how much has the youth vote increased this year?* 

I decided to take a look at all the primary and caucus states that have voted so far in order to get a good sense as to the young voter trends—increase in turnout, preference of candidate, preference of Party—and then compare that to the Superdelegates under 36 that have come out as “pledged” to a certain candidate. 

Trends of Party Preference: The Shift to Democrats

Young people are overwhelmingly going for Democrats this election cycle, following a trend since 2000.  Mike Connery, a blogger over at Future Majority, put together this nifty graphic that shows the growing Democratic advantage among young people. 

As you can see, already in 2008, young people are voting 65% for Democrats and only 34% for Republicans (it’s actually up to 68% now since a few more states have come in after Mike created this graph as you will see later in this post). 

Democrats have a 31% vote advantage headed into the Presidential elections not to mention all the down ballot races for Senate, House of Representative, Mayor, etc. this will affect.

While this is great news for the Democrats, it is not so good news for Republicans.  But--and a big but at that--Democrats should be forewarned.  Republicans had the youth vote during the Reagan years.  Almost 60% of the young people then voted for Republicans and continued to vote for Republicans as a bloc of voters.

However, Republicans stopped talking to future groups of young people and it shows now in their numbers.  If Democrats want a lasting majority, they need to continue targeted programs at young people or risk losing a big chunk of the electorate in the future.  While young people make up about 21% of the electorate now, they will be 30% of the electorate by 2012 and that is a bloc of voters that can very easily swing elections.

State by State Breakdown: Over 4 Million Strong and Growing

Across the board young people have increased their votes in almost every state except in NY there was no increase.  The average number of young people voting in a state in 2004 was 46,373.  The average in this election cycle is 174,646.  That is more than tripling the number of votes cast for 18-29 year olds.  This is remarkable since many youth voting experts could have predicted a 15-20% jump, but no one predicted a 200% plus jump.

Young Democrats are outnumbering young Republicans at the polls, except in Oklahoma and Utah.  The total number of votes cast so far by young people in 2008 is 4,016,875.  Of that number, 2,756,722 voted for Democrats and 1,269,821 voted for Republicans. 

In 2008, the average Democratic turnout among young people per state is 114,863 compared to 57,719 for Republicans.  In essence, young Democrats are almost doubling the turnout number of young Republicans. 

If these trends continue, knowing the enormous size of Millennials which is 44 million eligible to vote in 2008, the Republican Party would be wise to step up their young voter outreach programs.

Here in Nebraska, no exit polls were taken and the Party is still tabulating each precincts caucus results so we don’t have an age breakdown for Nebraska.  However, from first-hand accounts many County Chairs and Precinct Leaders all raved about the large number of young people not only showing up to caucus but also running as State Convention delegates.

Delegates 101: Who are They and How do They Get Chosen

Both the Democrats and Republicans have complicated calculations as to how many delegates each state has, if it’s a “winner take all” state or proportional, if it’s a caucus or a primary, etc.  Way too much nitty gritty for this blog post, but Vote Latino does a great job of explain some of the delegate process as does Convention Watch, Politico and CNN.  

I do my best to give a 101 on delegates below thanks to some work online, information gathered in my role as the DNC Youth Council Co-Chair as well as an invaluable source of information on rules and bylaws from Chris Gallaway, the former YDA President and former Executive Director of the Kansas Democratic Party.

Delegates—both on the Democrats and Republican sides—are in two broad categories:

1)    Delegates won through the process of regular voters on the day of the caucus and primaries.

2)    Superdelegates who can decide how to pledge their vote and theoretically not base it on anything but their personal preference.

The delegate count is what gets a person elected for their Party’s nomination for President of the United States.  In a “normal” election year, the delegates at the Party Convention don’t really “matter” in the sense that a candidate is usually already decided before the Party’s Convention happens and the delegates are usually nothing more than a “rubber stamp.”  Not this time around, well at least not for the Democrats.

The last time a contested election for the Party’s nomination on the Democrats side was 1952 and for the Republicans it was 1976.

Since the Superdelegates are a focus in the Democratic election, I thought it was important to see just how the Superdelegates under 36 are pledging their delegate vote.  While Republicans have Superdelegates, they are less of a focus or issue since McCain has the vast majority of delegates already shored up. 

The Superdelegates fall into three broad categories and will make up 20% of the vote at the Democratic Party Convention as to who the nominee for President is and since the regular delegate count is so close, the Superdelegates may just decide who is the nominee:

1)    Elected Federal Officials and State Governors: This group is all of the Democrats that are either serving in the United States House of Representative or Senate as well as some retired public officials, called “distinguished party leaders” like former Presidents and former DNC Chairs.

2)    State Elected DNC Members: Each state has a certain amount of members they have who are elected on a state level by members of the State Party that include the State Chair, DNC Committeewoman, DNC Committeeman among a few other titles. 

3)    Constituency DNC Members and Add Ons: These delegates are NOT elected by their state to represent their state, but rather are elected or appointed by a constituency group or the DNC Chair.  Big national Democratic groups like the Young Democrats of America, College Democrats of America, Democratic Governor’s Association and the National Federation of Democratic Women all get a certain amount of Superdelegates. These also include individuals that the DNC Chair, in this case Howard Dean, selects in our order to give the DNC a broad reach and balance among constituency groups. 

Young Superdelegates: Their Pledge to a Candidate

There are only 19 young Superdelegates out of 797, or another way of looking at it is only 2% of the Superdelegates are young yet they have made up about 16% of all Democratic voters so far in the primary season.  The number of young Superdelegates is a far cry from a good proportional amount to the youth population active in the Democratic Party, but we will leave that for another story. 

Since looking at the national average of who young people are preferring in the Democratic Party, it is very clear they prefer Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton with a margin of 26%.  I understand if a young Superdelegate is elected by their state to serve as a DNC member that they will vote the way (or I would hope) the majority of people in their state did, or at the very least the Superdelegates within a state all get together and decide on the percentage each candidate got in the primary vote or caucus and match that with the Superdelegates.

However, five of the 19 young Superdelegates are on the DNC not because they represent a state, but because they represent a constituency group--young people who are Democrats.  The Superdelegates that represent young people are from the Young Democrats of America and the College Democrats of America.  Those are the only two “youth based groups” that get Superdelegates on the DNC.

This is where it will get interesting from a young voter’s perspective.  You would think all of these Superdelegates would be pledging their vote to Obama since he has the majority of the youth vote.  That is not how it is lining up so far, and that is probably a good thing…for now since not all the states have had their say yet and there is always a chance Clinton will start to edge Obama’s lead with the youth vote.

One of the five Superdelegates has pledged to Clinton.  All the rest are “uncommitted” so far.  If the trend continues to where young people are voting roughly 60% for Obama and 40% for Clinton then we should see the Superdelegates that have their status because they represent young people pledge in that ratio or even side completely with Obama since the majority of young people seem to be doing that in the states that have vote so far.

Young Superdelegates and young voters both have a responsibility this election cycle and that is to prove their generation is voting.  Even more than that, young people must be a key group that elects the next President or the naysayes will once again come out of the woodwork and we will be back to square one where issues young people care about do not get any attention and where young voters are left out of the political process. 

*In this blog post, young voters are categorized in 18-29 year olds since census and CNN exit polls categorize young voters with these breakdowns and young Superdelegates are individuals under 36 since this is how the DNC categorizes ages.