Analysis

With promises of “hope,” “change,” and the slogan of “Yes We Can” during the presidential election of 2008, President Barack Obama won election while gathering a staggering 66 percent of the vote of those under 29 according to The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

After four years of a down economy that has made the job market tougher for college-aged adults, the youth vote is back up for grabs, and Republicans have sensed an opportunity to close the gap in a voting bloc President Obama needs if he wants to secure reelection in November.

In a sign that the youth vote is far from settled a recent poll from the Harvard University Institute of Politics found that only 43 percent of voters under the age of 30 planned to support the President, while 26 percent favored the presumed Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

While the President still enjoys a sizeable lead among young voters, it is down significantly from his 2008 number. This, combined with 2008 having a record number of youth voters, a turnout that New Hampshire Institute of Politics Executive Director Neil Levesque says is unlikely to be matched, means that the youth vote will be heavily contested in what is expected to be a close election.

The President has already begun courting youth voters with a recent swing through college campuses in battleground states speaking out in support of keeping interest rates on government backed student loans from doubling on July 1 and urging colleges to lower the cost of attendance.

That, along with his expression of support for gay marriage, is seen as actions meant to rally young voters to turn out for the President in November.

Romney is going after the President on the economy but a Rutgers University study that found that half of all college graduates between 2006 and 2011 failed to find a full-time job.

Romney’s campaign is being assisted by a new political “super” committee called Crossroads Generation, which is using $50,000 to launch a new social media ad in swing states targeted at voters under 30.

With just under six months until the election, the College Republicans and College Democrats are already very active in enlisting their fellow students to register to vote as well as to volunteer to help elect their respective candidates.

Both parties are also very active in social media, one area where the Obama campaign had a significant edge of the campaign of his 2008 opponent John McCain.

Four years after an election that saw record numbers of young voters turn out for him at the polls, the President is trying to reignite the support of an important constituency that carried him into the White House, and Romney is trying to turn any dissatisfaction with a slow economy that has led to a difficult job market for many youths into an advantage.

In an election that is forecasted to be very close, it may come down to which candidate makes a better case to America’s youngest voters.