Tuesday, November 7th, 2017, was a big night for Democrats. Democrats won a lot of races they were not expected to win, especially in the well-educated suburbs that were supposed to make the difference for Hillary Clinton last year, but didn’t.
One thing that stuck out to me, though, was what the exit polls told us about young voters. Here’s what I tweeted that night:
Whoa. Let’s not lose sight of the youth vote here.
Dem margins in VA among 18-29 year olds:
McAuliffe +5
Clinton +18
Northam … +39 pic.twitter.com/CvnIQsaadh— Will Jordan (@williamjordann) November 8, 2017
… Northam did extremely well with young voters, capturing a larger percentage of the 18-29 year-old vote than any statewide candidate in recent memory, with the exception of Mark Warner. Ex-Gov. Warner won 71 percent of the youth vote in 2008, but that was while he was winning 65 percent of the vote across all ages against ex-Gov. Jim Gilmore.Northam also did particularly well among the 30-44 crowd, who vote at higher rates and make up a much larger share of the electorate. One thing to note here that will become relevant again lower down: nearly half of 30-44s are now Millennials, the oldest of whom are now around 35 or 36 years old. Meanwhile, Northam did about average with voters over 45, and that’s key – it was the age gap between young and old that was especially unique. …
What happened this November is something relatively new, at least generationally. In fact, Northam’s coalition first reminded me of an election that took place outside of Virginia – outside of the United States, actually. CONT.
Will Jordan