On the younger cohort in the 2014 elections (and possibly beyond)

This is a case where I use this blog to basically go beyond 140 characters on Twitter. I probably should have "moved" here a lot earlier in the discussion I'm about to talk about.

These Harvard findings on young people aren't that surprising if you look back at the last Q-poll: http://t.co/YrJtixQaoK

— David Freddoso (@freddoso) December 4, 2013

If you click to David's tweet (after reading the article he linked, naturally), you will see a back and forth, mostly between @GWHistorian (a worthy follow) and me regarding a nit-pick I had with a phrase in David's piece. Always the pedant, I tweeted:

@freddoso Re: Q, despite slight GOP adv., unless the gap widens w<29 it won't matter if they turn out. Adv. not big enough to move needle.

— Gerry Daly (@GerryDales) December 4, 2013

That tweet was in reference to the following passage:

"Young voters, who trust the GOP over Obama by nine points on the economy, are now just slightly leaning GOP for the 2014 election. The challenge will be to turn them out, since they vote at such low rates."

Eventually, we agreed that blunting and advantage is always beneficial for whichever side had been on the short end.

However, there is one part to this that also needs to be considered. The younger cohort is one that Democrats have spent a lot of resources on turning out in the last few elections. If data show that the cohort is going to be a wash, then it would be a waste for a party to focus on them. A well-run party organization, which the Democrats have proven to be over the past several elections, will not make such a mistake.

It will be interesting to see if, as 2014's election draws near, there is as much visible effort being made on the youth vote as in 2006-2012. If not, one will probably be able to infer that their own internal polling is suggesting near-parity. It will also mean that they will have invested the freed resources elsewhere.