Projecting the Future: the Youth Vote in Presidential Elections As a Predictor for Subsequent Election Cycles

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in part on the backs of a substantial number of young Americans who cast their votes for the relatively inexperienced Senator. Beyond just the election of 2008, however, the impact of these youth voters on future presidential elections still reverberates. This work studies whether the youth vote in a given election serves as an indication of how that group of voters will split in future election cycles. It examines theories of political socialization, and retrospective voting, to see whether a group of voters tends to split either Democratic or Republican in a consistent matter. The answer is interesting for both political scientists and politicians, and has the potential to impact electoral strategy for years to come.