It's Hip to be Square

Mitt Romney making inroads with youth voters? Dude:

For the first time since he began running for president, Republican Mitt Romney has the support of over 40 percent of America’s youth vote, a troubling sign for President Obama who built his 2008 victory with the overwhelming support of younger, idealistic voters.

I imagine the last three or four years have drummed some of that idealism out of America’s youth.

For a little perspective, voters in the 18-29 bloc went better than 2-1 for Obama over McCain — 66% to 32%. An nine-point gain is nothing to sneeze at, even if it does bring Romney up only to 41%.

Also, the youth vote was energized four years ago, and represented a larger share of total votes cast than is typical. This time around, not so much. Obama will likely win a smaller share of a shrunken demo.

The poll was conducted by Zogby over the weekend, so a couple caveats. Weekend polls aren’t generally as reliable as weekday polls, and Gary Johnson snags five percent of the youth vote when he’s included in a three-way race.

What’s interesting is, Johnson takes those votes away from Romney, not from Obama. That tells me that younger voters today might be closer to where they were (where I was!) back in the ’80s — fed up with Big Government.