Young Minority Voters Consider Options Other Than Obama

Democratic registration is down 800,000 while independents are growing in number.

For the last three national elections – 2004, 2006, and 2008 – the Democratic Party has claimed the votes of the majority of young voters.

According to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 66% of voters 18-29 years old voted for Barack Obama in 2008. This created the biggest disparity between young voters and other age groups since exit polling began in 1972 — saying a lot about the importance of young people to President Obama’s re-election campaign.

However, new research suggests President Obama may have something to worry about: lack of engagement, decreasing democratic voters, and an increasing independent votership — making many voters up for grabs.

“Millennials continue to support Obama at much higher levels than older generations. But Obama’s job ratings have fallen steeply among this group, as well as among older generations, since early 2009,” the survey research stated. “Perhaps more ominously for Obama, Millennials are much less engaged in politics than they were at this stage in the 2008 campaign.”

Its no surprise that President Obama’s job record is coming into question. Since even before he came into office, the unemployment rate was on the rise — reaching a peak in October of 2010 at 10%. This is one of the main reasons why Andrew Lee, former Vice Chair of membership at the Young Republican National Federation, says he’s opened his options and joined the Republican Party.

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“The major concerns for the Black community are the decline of the black family, quality educational opportunities, and jobs,” Mr. Lee told Loop21. “I’m not denying that the Republican Party needs to do better reaching out to minorities but we need to look at what works. Part of doing that is not giving 99% of your vote to one party. I don’t think that’s served the African American community at all.”