The Hill was abuzz on Nov. 4, 2008, with the news that then-Senator Barack Obama had been elected the 44th president of the United States. The Experimental College's Election Night Extravaganza drew crowds into Hotung to await the results, and Obama's victory led to festivities among students.
"On election night there was a gigantic, spontaneous celebration [march] down to Davis Square," Director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) Peter Levine recounted of stories told the following day. "If you'd been here in '08, in that fall of '08, you would've said that they were all very excited about Obama."
Four years later, election season is upon us again, and the youth demographic appears to have a huge stake in the results. A turnout as equally striking as in '08, though, is not expected.
With nearly 46 million 18- to 29-year-old citizens registered to vote, the youth demographic makes up 21 percent of all voters. According to reporting in July by Gallup, though, turnout intentions in this age group are low - especially compared to the national average of 78 percent - with 58 percent of youth asserting they are "definitely likely" to vote in the election.
"I don't really like to lecture or persuade Tufts students that they should vote because I actually think the question of whether or not you should vote is a decent one," Levine said. "What I would say is that groups of people - demographic groups - who vote get a lot better deal in society than groups who don't."
Approximately 90 percent of Tufts students voted in the 2008 election, according to Levine, and the youth vote in general in the 2008 Presidential election contributed significantly to Obama's victory. Despite a relatively normal turnout of 18- to 29-year-olds compared to other years, the atypical aspect of the '08 election was the dramatic Democratic lean of the youth demographic.
Almost 66 percent of young voters chose Obama over McCain, according to the election exit polls. With a youth voter turnout of about 51 percent - 11 percentage points higher than the 2000 election - the decision to vote Democrat seemed to transcend racial and partisan lines, according to CIRCLE's fact sheet, "Young Voters in the 2008 Presidential Election."
Regardless of preference for a candidate, the issues that voters consider most important in this year's election appear to be consistent across all age groups, according to John Richard Skuse Professor of Political Science Jeff Berry.
"For 18- to 29-year-olds, a lot of the issues overlap with those that everyone else is concerned about," he said. "So the economy is number one on everybody's mind regardless of age or any other demographic factor."
Levine cited a survey conducted by CIRCLE that reiterated the widespread concern for economic issues.
"We did a poll in early July of young people, and we asked them what issues are most important to them," he said. "If you're asking about what most people care about, the answer is definitely economic performance and a debate about which party is more likely to get us out of a bad economic era."
As a result, according to Levine, there is not necessarily a separate youth agenda in the campaign, although there are particular social issues that would be of greater significance to young voters, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights or environmental concerns. Issues such as these matter intensely to specific members of the demographic, but young citizens as a whole are difficult to pigeonhole into one cause.
"A key thing that we always say about the generation is it's ... not only hard to generalize, but somewhat inappropriate or bad to generalize," Levine said. "In fact, the most important thing about this generation is just how ... splintered it is. You're the most demographically diverse generation in American history."
Consequently, Levine said, both Obama and Romney must be accessible to different young constituencies.
"Whenever anyone's asked to vote, they're much more likely to vote, so campaigns either do that with young people or they don't," he said. "Very often they don't because they think that young people are not very likely to vote comparatively, so they don't bother. But the Obama campaign [has had] a lot of outreach, especially to college youth in '08."
The youth turnout for McCain, on the other hand, was the worst for a presidential candidate in American history, Levine added.
"I think the Romney campaign knows that and is definitely stepping it up," he said.
The result is proactive campaigning through channels that directly reach young voters, particularly social media. Both campaigns are accessible on multiple social networks, despite a clear lead taken by Obama's efforts.
According to studies by the Pew Research Center, the Obama campaign had a presence on two times as many platforms as the Romney campaign, posting four times as much content, over a two-week period in June.
Yet neither is particularly "social" in his use of social media. According to Pew research, only three percent of Obama's tweets in the same two-week span were retweeted messages and Romney only retweeted a single post, originally posted by his son.
Additionally, voters are increasingly relaying campaign messages via social media outlets, dampening the role of traditional news media. Social media, though, is not the only source of involvement by young voters.
"Another important part
is that college students are a great source of volunteers for both campaigns," Berry said. "The Obama campaign in particular is counting on college students to register each other and other voters."
College students in 2008 were a significant part of the Democratic Party campaign efforts. Despite reports by CIRCLE that "election enthusiasm" has decreased since '08, political activism at Tufts has kicked into high gear for the fall semester.
Both Tufts Democrats and Tufts Republicans, as well as the Tufts for Elizabeth Warren and Tufts for Scott Brown subgroups, have begun their campaign initiatives on- and off-campus in earnest.
"We're going to be working closely with Tufts for Elizabeth Warren, with Tufts Students for Barack Obama, the OFA [Obama for America] chapter," Vice President of Tufts Democrats Michael Maskin, a sophomore, said. "We're really just going to try to blast as many events as we can and
just try to get everyone involved."
According to Maskin and Tufts Democrats President BronwenRaff, a senior, the group circulates a weekly newsletter detailing the events it sponsors, including canvassing, phone banking for both Obama and Warren and hosting watch parties for the national Presidential debates, among others.
Although some students have not been as energized by the 2012 Obama campaign's message compared to that of 2008, Raff finds that the issues of this election are tremendously pertinent to campus.
"As far as I'm concerned, I think this election is probably one of the most relevant for students," she said. "I think what is at stake in this election is super critical to student loans, student health care - maybe the campaign isn't as cool, maybe Michael Franti isn't writing rap songs about it anymore, but I think it's much more important than it was four years ago."
Tufts Republicans is also working to increase their presence on campus this semester. Now with about 150 email addresses on their mailing list, Tufts Republicans co-Presidents Bennett Gillogly and Ryan Grandeau are looking to build momentum as election season heats up.
"We want to change the Tufts Republicans," Gillogly, a junior, said. "We want to be a club devoted to wherever you might be on the political spectrum, discussing the issues, discussing topics, discussing this election and really getting a chance to be involved in
this campaign cycle."
According to Gillogly, who is also the president of Tufts for Scott Brown, Tufts Republicans is campaigning solely for Scott Brown from now until the election. They plan to table, increase activity online through social media and invite members of the Scott Brown campaign to Tufts to speak, among other events.
Both partisan groups, though, are also concentrating their efforts on voter registration.
"It's almost ironic, especially at a time when so many of the issues pertain to our generation
the quintessential notion is that politics goes in favor of those who show up," Gillogly said. "You hear our generation complaining significantly about issues with student loans, issues with the debt that we are going to inherit, et cetera. But then we are the most, frankly, pathetic voter demographic
and the question is how do we change that?"
According to Raff and Gillogly, registering students to vote is a priority, and they will each be working with other political organizations on campus to get out the vote. Tufts Votes, a non-partisan subgroup of the Institute for Political Citizenship (IPC), is aiming to be the umbrella organization for all voter registration efforts on campus.
"Our goal is to - whether it's the Elizabeth Warren campaign or
Tufts Republicans or
the LGBT center - anyone who wants to do a voter registration effort ... we're going to sort of coalesce the volunteers together," head of Tufts Votes Jacob Wessel, a junior, said. "We're planning big voter registration efforts to get everyone on campus registered and make sure that all the logistical nightmares are more on our end [so that] ... students [aren't] worrying about them."
Beyond registration drives, non-partisan efforts contribute substantially to the dialogue among students on campus this semester.
"The [IPC] is a group that is all about talking about policy and politics, but trying to have constructive conversations and discussions and educating ourselves about the political issues of the day," Wessel said.
IPC President Eric Peckham, a senior, has been working to provide an outlet for energized students on campus, including hosting viewing parties for the presidential and senatorial debates, presenting various speakers throughout the semester and holding weekly policy forums. Although the policy forums are not new this semester, election-related national issues will be a part of the discussion.
"How this came together is [because] we didn't see a non-partisan venue on campus to talk about public policies and debate that on a domestic level," Peckham said. "The policy forum is a great time, whether you're part of one party or another or don't align with either, to investigate policies more."
University Provost David Harris sees a need for similar interaction between students and professors on the significant issues of the election. According to Peckham, Harris reached out to the IPC for feedback on initiating such discourse.
This resulted in the Engage the Debate event, which will provide students with a community forum for the Oct. 16 presidential debate, offering a faculty panel followed by a live showing of the debate.
"The five panelists will provide foundational information, based on their scholarly expertise, that will allow us all to be more informed consumers of the debate," Harris told the Daily in an email. "This event deviates from much of what we see in the media, which tends to feature dueling advocates trying to convince people to support their position or candidate. We strive to inform, not convert."
With youth engagement across the nation low this campaign cycle, especially compared to 2008, these efforts to involve students in the political process are significant. According to research done by Pew, only 18 percent of registered young voters - versus 35 percent four years ago - are "following campaign news very closely." Additional research shows that only 50 percent of 18 to 29 year olds are certain that they are registered to vote, as compared with 61 percent in 2008 and 57 percent in 2004.
"Sadly, I don't see [young voters] playing as important a role as I would like," Wessel said. "I think voter turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds is very low, compared to other countries, and that's disheartening to me, as someone whose goal it is right now ... to get everyone out to the polls."
Although he believes that the question of whether or not any individual Tufts student should vote is valid, Levine emphasized that voting should be assessed and carried out conscientiously.
"I think you should think about [it], you should consider it." Levine said. "You're actually in the demographic that does vote and that's going to have quite a lot of influence over the years, so you should vote well, vote responsibly."
