The 2004 election cycle was historic for the Democratic youth vote. Young people showed up and increased their turnout by 11 percentage points—double that of any other age group. During 2004, YDA knew we had to do something different in order to get the youth vote to turnout in record numbers because what we were doing and what the non-partisan communities were doing was not working to stop the declining youth vote.

The Alliance model was a success on a national level during a Presidential cycle . YDA built upon our existing infrastructure, lessons learned in 2004 and created a state-wide model as well as various tests for the 2005 Virginia gubernatorial and other down ballot state office elections. Combining time tested campaign techniques and non-traditional outreach, YDA achieved a significant increase in young voters (18-35 year olds).

2004 National Alliance Overview

The Young Democrats of America led a historic youth coordinated campaign, called the Young Voter Alliance, which brought together traditional party line groups with social justice and activist groups. This is the first time in youth politics that these organizations have come together to work hand and hand on a voter contact program. We built a New Voter Model by using a combination of traditional methods such as door knocking and nontraditional methods such as talking with young people where they hangout.

A groundbreaking alliance joined the election fight this year. For the first time in youth electoral politics, activist, cultural, social justice and traditional party line organizations came together to form the Young Voter Alliance. The five founding organizations that formed the Alliance are the League of Independent Voters, League of Hip-Hop Voters, MoveOn Student Action, National Stonewall Democrats and Young Democrats of America. The Alliance operated a strategic voter contact program, aimed at 18-35 year old voters, in five key states: Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In a typical campaign, young people get knocked off a campaign target list because they are unreliable voters and hard to find because they move around year after year. In the youth voting world this is referred to as the “cycle of mutual neglect.” Candidates and campaigns don’t focus on young people so young people don’t vote. Young people don’t vote because candidates and campaigns don’t focus on them or issues they care about. Another critical mistake by groups that target young people is to simply make voting cool and tell young people to vote their conscience—young people like any other age demographic need to be talked with about real issues and why Democrats are a better choice.

Instead of continuing this cycle the Young Democrats of America pulled together the best minds on youth voting and formed the Alliance to break through this cycle and to create a New Voter Model so young people become a viable voting bloc for the Democratic party. National staff included Jane Fleming, Ryan Friedrichs, Malia Lazu and Colin O’Dea.

Our message was simple, the Republicans continue to lead us in the wrong direction and young people are the ones who can turn the tide for progressive politics. Our budget was focused, only $1.3 million to implement a project in 5 swing states.

The New Voter Model encourages niche groups to participate in electoral politics, and at the same time empowers them to reach their constituency in ways that honor their individuality and strengthens their role in their communities for long-term sustainability. The New Voter Model is a hybrid of time-tested grassroots techniques and the nation’s most successful young voter mobilization programs including a community organizing model from Boston and a traditional field campaign model from Michigan, both pioneered by Alliance national staff members.

The unique aspect of the Alliance is the hyper-focused targeting of young people and the peer-to-peer methods used to educate and turn out record numbers of young people. The Alliance is critical because previous, mostly nonpartisan, young voter projects have failed to address the anti-voting culture among young people. The multiple peer-to-peer contacts and use of a local face and a local message is helping bring a sense of national momentum and finally connecting voting to the issues that young people care about.

The Alliance had a team of over 500 staff who spoke with over 300,000 young people, multiple times, and got them to the polls to vote for Democrats. Below is a snapshot of Alliance’s target universe:

Target StatesTarget CitiesTarget PrecinctsTarget 18-35 Universe
FLTampa, Orlando, Tallahassee6979,321
NMLas Cruces248,310
OHCincinnati, Columbus13859,614
PAPhiladelphia, Pittsburgh12484,219
WIMadison, Milwaukee7771,601
Total10 Cities443303,065
A team of evaluators measured the impact of the Alliance’s voter contact program and the final report is available upon request.

The 2004 mission of the Alliance was to develop and measure the results of a New Voter Model in increasing young Democratic voter turnout. Initial election results indicate that the mission was a success. Young voters were one of the few shining lights for Democrats. The infrastructure and model built is critical to the continued mobilization of this demographic.

Over a period of 6 months, the Alliance hired and trained a team of over 500 young people in 5 swing states to knock on doors and hit the streets talking to over 300,000 of their peers about issues young people care about and why they needed to vote in order to change the direction of our country.

Success of National Alliance Program + the 2004 Youth Vote
Young people responded in record numbers. Nationally, the only age group Kerry won was young voters. In the key Alliance target states, CNN 18-29 exit polls report the margin among young voters favored Democrats proving targeted programs work to get out the youth vote:

18-point margin for Kerry in Florida
14-point margin for Kerry in Ohio
32-point margin for Kerry in Pennsylvania
16-point margin for Kerry in Wisconsin

While media stories initially masked the increased youth turnout by reporting a single figure based on the overall electorate, it is now clear that young voter turnout was the highest since 18 year olds were given the right to vote in 1972.

Nationally, the only age group Kerry won was young voters. Kerry received 54% and Bush received 45% of the vote. This is a significant gain for Democrats considering in 2000 Al Gore only received 47.6% to Bush’s 46.2% of the youth vote.

Before the November elections, 70% of young people said they received NO contact from a party or candidate. Post-election, this shrunk to below 40% indicating the intense focus on young people by political groups.

51% 18-30 years turned out to vote compared to 42% in 2000. 8 million or 42% of the 18-30 year olds voted for the first time, which represents 64% of the 13 million first-time voters.

64.4% of young people voted in the 10 most competitive battleground states. Only 48% of young people voted across all other states, proving when targeted, young voters come out in higher numbers.

Most bang for the buck. The youth vote was the most economical way to get more votes for Democrats.

College Republicans raised over $7 million to fund their programs in this election cycle compared to the Young Democrats $1.3 million; however Young Democrats outnumbered Young Republicans in the polls because of our strong grassroots and peer-to-peer efforts.

Young voters generally had the same concerns as older voters. Of the under-30 voters, 22% said “moral values” were the most important issue, the same percentage as all voters. But on some prominent issues, they differed dramatically from other age groups. Notably, 41% favor gay marriage, compared to 25% of all voters. They were 12% more likely than older voters to identify as liberal, and 7% less likely to call themselves conservative. Voters under 30 were also 10% more likely to believe that “government should do more to solve problems.”

One of the most critical lessons of the field program was the need to keep building the youth base for the Democratic party and that means not shying away from a partisan message. Young people have drifted from politics in previous years and have drifted from aligning themselves with a Party (33% don’t identify with either Party).