Wheaton Wire

Issue date: 11/15/06 Section: News

Young voters are unhappy with the President, Congress and the war in Iraq, according to two polls released in recent weeks. Last Tuesday, that broad dissatisfaction helped sweep the entrenched Republican majority out of Congress and give the Democratic Party control of both houses for the first time in more than a decade.

Particularly significant this year was the fact that these young voters were, in fact, voting.

The first poll, conducted Oct. 4-16 by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, predicted a record turnout for voters aged 18-24 in the midterm elections, as 32 percent of 2,546 respondents indicated that they would "definitely be voting" on Nov. 7.

Post-election polling and analysis by the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University indicated that although the demographic failed to surpass its record turnout of 26.6 in 1982, young people still tallied 24 percent - an increase of 2 million voters over the 2002 midterm elections.

These were new voters, apparently, with an axe to grind. According to the Harvard Poll, 60 percent of young adults felt the country was "on the wrong track," while just 18 percent believed it was headed in the right direction. President Bush's approval rating sat at 32 percent, with 68 percent disapproving. That about equaled Bush's approval among general voters in a late October CBS News/New York Times poll, but his disapproval rating among young voters was 10 points higher.

Furthermore, 52 percent of respondents preferred a Democratic-controlled Congress, compared to 29 percent in support of a Republican-led one.

Finally, more young adults indicated that they trusted the military (55 percent) and the United Nations (38 percent) than the President (31 percent), Congress (29 percent) and the federal government (28 percent).

According to the GWU poll, which surveyed 500 18-to-29-year-olds for the school's Young Voter Strategies project, this rising tide of disenchantment contributed to the Democrats' sweep of Congress. In House races, 61 percent of young people indicated that they voted Democratic - the same percentage of respondents in that poll who characterized the nation as "on the wrong track." Overall, 50 percent of those surveyed reported voting Democrat in races across the two houses, compared to 35 percent on the Republican side.

The ongoing Iraq war figured prominently in young voters' attitudes, according to both polls. The GWU poll found that the war was the most important issue in choosing a candidate for 43 percent of respondents indicated. According to the Harvard IOP survey, nearly half (46 percent) of 18-24 year-olds favor withdrawing troops from Iraq either immediately or within the next year. President Bush's handling of the war earned an average grade of D+ in that poll.

The Harvard poll also found that education played a key role in shaping students' voting habits and attitudes about politics. Eighty-four percent of young adults with a college degree classify politics as "relevant to their lives," compared with 69 percent of those without college educations.

Furthermore, young adults "on campus" are substantially more likely to have participated in "a government, political, or issues-related organization" within the last year. Undergraduates (25 percent) and graduate students (29 percent) were classified as "most politically active" by this criterion.

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