Throughout its rocky rise to becoming the nation's most crucial swing state, Florida has had one electoral constant: the battle for its prized 27 votes has centered on its politically motivated retirees and condo commandos. In fact, if there is any key state where Barack Obama's focus on the youth vote wouldn't seem to be much of an asset, it's Florida, where discussions of Social Security and Medicare have traditionally trumped all other issues. But the once easily pigeonholed demographics in the Sunshine State are changing, and many pundits say the 30-and-under crowd could turn out to be the decisive factor in this year's closely contested race.
That's about the last thing the McCain campaign needs to hear right now. Florida, run by a Republican Governor and legislature, was supposed to be the Arizona senator's to lose. But while polls through September showed him and Obama in a dead heat, Obama seems to be pulling away as the nation's economic crisis worsens. Four polls released last week show Obama not only leading - one, by Quinnipiac University, has him up by as much as eight points - but breaking the 50% barrier for the first time.
But are young people really a factor in that surge? There is no denying that the state is getting younger as a whole. In the 1990s, population growth for Floridians aged 19 and under finally surpassed that of Floridians 65 and older - and Floridians born in 1990 came of voting age this year. A recent Miami Herald poll has Obama well ahead of McCain among voters aged 18 to 34, 52% to 42%. "I'm betting young voters will make a big difference this time," says University of Florida political scientist Richard Scher. "The campaign in Florida is playing out as much on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter as it is on television."
The surge in voter registration in Florida also suggests younger people are becoming more politically involved. Through August, Florida had 10.6 million registered voters. That includes almost 450,000 who were added to the state's rolls this year - and among those, 252,000 registered as Democrats, while fewer than 100,000 are Republicans. No age breakdown is available, but election experts agree a majority of those new voters are under age 30. Zach Moller, a senior economics major and president of the University of Florida Democrats, says 2,500 UF students registered on campus on the first day of classes last month; that number has doubled since then and he expects it to have doubled again by the state's Oct. 6 deadline. The story is the same on other Florida campuses like the University of Central Florida, Florida State University and the University of Miami.
One reason for this heightened interest is the prevalence of issues that really engage younger voters, not just the Iraq War but eco-debates like whether or not to permit oil-drilling off Florida's coast. Bryan Griffin, 20, a junior classics/political science major and head of UF's Republicans, suggests young Floridians have begun to shift their focus from the beach to the ballot box. "There's a lessening of political apathy,"he says. "Florida kids have a lot of [recreational]distractions, but we're waking up now to the realization that we can make a difference in this state."
The deepening financial mess is another wake-up call, says Scher. It has rained down home foreclosures and other calamities on Florida, slapping the slack-jawed face of a youth cohort that until now had never experienced a downturn. During the extended Florida boom of the past two decades, says Scher, "young people here grew up thinking this state was always flush, always on the upswing. Now there's a sense that something is burning here." Moller says he's seeing more Florida college seniors moving toward the Democrats as a result. "I feel like my dad did when he graduated in 1976," during another period of economic malaise, he says. "We feel fairly sure we won't be able to get a job out of college."
Either way, Justin York, 20, a junior pre-law student and president of the College Republicans at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, says both parties need to acknowledge that it's not just the elderly migrating to Florida anymore. "More and more you see people opting to go to college in Florida, or they move here right after graduating from college in a state like Pennsylvania," says York. "Whichever party wins them now will win this state in the future."
Student GOP leaders like York say Obama has also been helped by the fact that he's vastly outspending McCain at their schools - part of the Obama campaign's vow to shell out a whopping $39 million in Florida this fall. "We too are saturating Facebook,"says York, whose group has reached out to younger voters with slogans like "Vote for the Hero and the Hottie," referring to McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. "But the Republican Party needs to get more serious and creative about this group."
The Obama campaign, by contrast, has been tapping the power of the Internet since it began almost two years ago. Last month, when it wanted to alert backers at the University of Florida that Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker would be speaking on Obama's behalf on the sprawling Gainesville campus, it went to cyberspace instead of the quad. "The campaign texted us,"boasts Moller. "They also use Facebook a lot. They make the extra effort to connect with younger voters."
The question is whether this group - which always talks an idealistic game but tends to sleep in on election day - has gotten more serious about actually turning out to vote. More than 150,000 voters under age 30 voted in Florida's Democratic primary this year, despite the fact that Obama didn't even campaign there because the national party had ruled the election wouldn't count. (That was due to Florida changing its primary date in violation of both GOP and Democratic Party rules). Almost 135,000 in that age group voted in the state's Republican primary. Those figures still accounted for less than 10% of all Florida primary voters, but they represented a 14% turnout for that bloc, up from a measly 4% in 2000.
Scher also notes that in a state where almost a fifth of the total electorate are independents, many of Florida's young voters have no party affiliation. That, he argues, makes them an even more important swing constituency. "Our generation doesn't like labels,"says Moller. "But I do think we're going to turn Florida from an independent state that votes Republican to one that votes Democrat."
That's hardly certain yet, especially since younger voters will still have to prove they can keep up with their elders, who are famous for turnout rates as high as 80% in Florida. They will also have to show that they can affect the vote of Florida blocs like African-Americans and Latinos.
Florida's 1.3 million registered black voters, so many of whom felt disenfranchised in the 2000 Florida recount debacle, were uninspired by Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004 and are a question mark in 2008. As a result, "to a large degree we're counting on young African-Americans," who connect with Obama more readily than their parents or grandparents do, "to bring the black vote up to where we need it in Florida," says an Obama campaign official. Obama faces a tougher time with Latinos, who according to a recent poll favor McCain in Florida by 51% to 41%. Again, Obama is counting on younger Latinos like Esteban Morera, 18, a Miamian and UCF freshman, to keep him competitive in that community. Morera says he was undecided until McCain selected Palin last month. "It helped confirm for me that I really like Obama's ideas on solving Iraq better,"says Morera.
Young Florida Republicans like Griffin are just as convinced that "being young, you know you don't have the experience to run the country, that someone like John McCain does and someone like Barack Obama doesn't." Either way, given how controversially razor-thin Florida electoral victories tend to be these days, the fresh-faced could tip the balance in November - if not with their own ballots, then by convincing their elders which way to vote. One of the most popular videos on YouTube in recent weeks features comedian Sarah Silverman imploring young Jews to "get your fat asses on a plane to Florida" and lobby their grandparents there to vote Obama because "no one is more influential over them" than their grandkids - part of an organized grassroots initiative known as The Great Schlep. But airfares being what they are today, the Obama campaign might advise them to just drop them a text message.
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