DES MOINES - Young voters turned out in record numbers at Iowa's caucuses Thursday night, helping to propel Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee to victories and foreshadowing a national trend that shows the young as a pivotal electorate in this year's primaries and general election.
The number of eligible Iowans under 30 who turned out for the caucuses more than tripled from 2004 to this year, according to the nonpartisan Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. While older voters have long dominated the caucus process, participants under 30 made up 22 percent of the total vote, the same percentage as voters 65 years and older who showed up to caucus.
Analysts and political activists attribute the rise to increased concern over world events and to an accelerated effort by presidential candidates to reach out to the young, who in past elections were uninterested in politics or felt helpless to change things.
Young voters said both Obama and Huckabee made concerted efforts to reach out to them, and they were rewarded: Huckabee took 38 percent of the vote among Republican caucus-goers 17 to 24 years old, according to a Fox News entrance poll, compared with 22 percent for Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts.
Obama, who has relied heavily on support from young voters to fuel his campaign, captured 57 percent of the vote among Iowa Democrats under 30, compared with 11 percent who went for Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, according to a CNN entrance poll.
Youth participation in elections has been growing in the past two elections, but some political specialists had been skeptical that the trend would be reflected in Iowa. The Jan. 3 caucuses occurred during college students' winter break, and the process of caucusing - which requires voters to show up at a specific time and spend time discussing candidates and voting - is onerous, often discouraging young voters.
But young people, induced with gas money, a place to crash in their college communities, and appeals from candidates in both parties, braved the cold to make their voices heard.
"I think they really were the engine and put more energy into the process," likely encouraging their parents to vote as well, said John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard's Institute of Politics.
Both parties in Iowa reported record turnouts, with nearly 239,000 Democrats - almost twice the number who caucused in 2004 - turning out to vote this year. On the GOP side, some 120,000 voters showed up in church basements, school cafeterias, and other venues to pick a Republican candidate, a huge jump from the 86,400 who caucused in 2000, the last year the Republicans had a contested nominating process in Iowa.
Gleeful Democrats, noting the big crowds that showed up to see Democratic candidates across Iowa, hope the large turnout means Iowa, always a swing state in presidential elections, will favor their party's nominee this fall.
Republicans said that they were pleased with their own all-time-high participation rate in the caucuses and that the general election would draw more GOP voters fearful that a Democrat would raise taxes and be soft on illegal immigration.
If any of the currently leading Democratic candidates wins the nomination, "I don't think anyone can say with a straight face that there's going to be a serious problem with an energized Republican electorate," said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "The stakes are too high, the differences too real."
Both parties were given a jolting reminder of the critical and growing importance of younger voters. Obama and Huckabee - the youngest contenders in their respective parties - both captured pluralities of the youth vote in their races in Iowa.
"Obama did a really good job of targeting the youth vote and making an effort to reach us," said Stacey Wilson, a 19-year-old Drake University sophomore who helped organize drives to get students out to vote in both party caucuses. Huckabee also "really made an effort to reach out and talk to us on our level," she said.
Wilson said about half of the 176 participants at the caucus she attended were young people.
Obama and Huckabee appealed to young voters with a call for unity and a promise of change - themes that may transcend to the rest of the electorate, said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party.
"It's almost antiestablishment," Laudner said. "The word 'change' gets bandied around an awful lot, but right now, it's undefined. It seems to me like a referendum is coming, and November may be that."
Young people are trending more Democratic than they have in the past two decades, Della Volpe said, and many are favoring Obama. But Huckabee, a Baptist minister with a compassionate message, is also appealing to young Republicans, many of whom view their faith as a mission to help others, he said.
Student organizers said they expect Iowa's turnout to be replicated in New Hampshire and in other states.
"No one was expecting the student turnout," Wilson said. "Just because we're not protesting or getting tear-gassed doesn't mean we don't care," she added.
"I'm just glad we shocked everybody."
