Can Youth Swing Pennsylvania?
by Cora Currier
Link to ArticlePennsylvania is one of the oldest states in the union, with the 3rd highest number of voters over 65. But it's also got almost 700,000 college students, something the Obama campaign is well aware of. If he can capture the same sort of massive turnout that helped propel his victory in Iowa, he could close Clinton's gap.The Obama campaign has been working hard in Pennsylvania: they ran "Spring Break Internships" in March, bringing in college students from around the country to Pennsylvania for voter outreach. He has an enthusiastic cadre of young supporters in the state too: Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey credits his teenage daughters with pushing him to publicly endorse Obama. So Obama will likely be helped by the fact that many of the non-partisan voter outreach efforts in Pennsylvania have targeted college campuses, such as HeadCount and the United States Student Association. This weekend the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, which has historically had great success turning out young African American Voters, has focused the bulk of its efforts in Pennsylvania, and will hold a get-out-the-vote rally at Temple University in Philadelphia just before the April 22 primary. But even if Obama has the loyalty of most college students, many of them might not be voting in Pennsylvania. The voter registration deadline fell during or just after many schools' spring breaks, and, as a recent Politico article points out, the campaigns may have been too slow to start pushing registration. And unlike Indiana, where Obama has been heavily courting high school students-- holding competitions to "play basketball with Barack"--Pennsylvania voters must be 18 before the primary to participate, not just the general election.If Obama can't get a high student turnout, he may run into the same pitfall he did in New Hampshire-- non-college, less affluent young people favored Clinton in that state, outweighing his support on campuses and in college towns. Not that Clinton has written off college student's either: Chelsea will be stumping at the Pennsylvania College Dems convention this weekend. Both candidates know this is a race where every vote counts. These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. If you have accounts on these bookmarking sites, you can post this story to share it with others.
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