Barone: GOP must show young it's a party of options

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

The reason three of the four Republicans haven’t paid much attention to young voters is that the under 30 folks have been turning out in the Republican contests in miniscule numbers.

According to entrance and exit polls, voters under 30 accounted for 15 percent of participants in Iowa, 12 percent in New Hampshire, 9 percent in South Carolina, 6 percent in Florida and 8 percent in Nevada.

By way of comparison, voters that age were 18 percent of the electorate in November 2008.

And, in that election, they voted 66 to 32 percent for Barack Obama over John McCain. Voters above that age favored Obama by only 50 to 49 percent. McCain would have won if the voting age were 35.

In this year’s Republican contests, the big winner among young voters has been Ron Paul. His libertarian message — on monetary policy, marijuana policy and foreign policy — has brought out the under-30 voters, though many and perhaps most don’t identify themselves as Republicans at all.

Paul got nearly half the young votes in Iowa and New Hampshire and carried the young voters — and little else — in Nevada. He narrowly edged Gingrich among young voters in South Carolina and finished second among them in Florida.

Young voters were not buying Mitt Romney’s act in the first three contests. Only 13 percent of them voted for him in Iowa, 26 percent in New Hampshire and 16 percent — the lowest among the Republicans — in South Carolina.

He did do better later, carrying the 18-29 group with 41 percent in Florida, and he only ran 41 to 36 percent behind Paul in Nevada

Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that the candidate who seems overwhelmingly likely to be the Republican nominee hasn’t shown much appeal to young voters.

That’s problematic for the general election, because while young Americans have clearly soured somewhat on Barack Obama — the change they hoped for, whatever it was, hasn’t arrived — they are still the most Democratic-inclined age group by a considerable margin.