Poll suggests youth voters will deliver North Carolina for Romney(updated): Joel Gehrke President Obama has a p...http://bit.ly/R4MM2u
6:35 PM - 4 Sep 12 · Details
Poll suggests youth voters will deliver North Carolina for Romney (updated)
September 4, 2012 | 5:41 pm
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President Obama has a problem brewing among the young voters who delivered him North Carolina in 2008, according to a new poll released in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention.
Just 37 percent of 18-29 year old voters in North Carolina believe that their political leaders — including President Obama — “reflect the interests of young Americans,” according to a new survey from Generation Opportunity. Seventy-eight percent of young people surveyed said they plan to vote in the presidential election. The poll, which did not ask voters if they would vote for Obama, has a 4.4 percent margin of error with 500 respondents.
“This survey confirmed what we have been hearing on the ground for months: young people don’t feel like their elected officials are looking out for them, and they’re planning to show up to the polls in big numbers this November to make their voices heard,” Paul Conway, president of Generation Opportunity, said in a statement on the poll results.
The bad economy is driving the dissatisfaction with Obama among youth voters, according to this poll, which shows that 88 percent of young voters “changed some aspect of their day-to-day lives” while 79 percent “have delayed or might not do some major life event” — such as “start a family” and “get married” — because of angst over the economy.
Noting that Obama 18-29 year-old voters propelled Obama to victory in North Carolina during his last campaign — they made up 18 percent of the electorate in 2008, and the only age group that Obama carried that year — Conway told The Washington Examiner that the poll results lead him to believe that youth voters are disaffected with President Obama.
“They are the folks who elected him in North Carolina, but with the state of the economy and the way things are going here and the number of people who are impacted . . . we actually think that young voters will determine North Carolina in the same way that they will determine other key swing states,” Conway said. Asked to clarify, he said “yes,” young voters will deliver North Carolina for Republicans.
Update: Citing a miscommunication in the original interview, Generation Opportunity told the Examiner that they are not predicting Romney or the Republicans will carry the youth vote in North Carolina. Instead, they believe only that the youth voters are disappointed in the economy and disaffected with their incumbent political leaders.
