1/ NH exit polls are interesting. On 1 hand, Pete & Amy mostly did well w/demo groups NOT key to Dem victories & Bernie did better w/those that ARE. However: Bernie's huge adv w/youth won't help in Nov if that group remains 13% of voters...(b4 pouncing, read the thread please)..
2/ ..even 30-44 (which Bernie also carries strongly) when added to 18-29, only = 35% of the vote. And no, it's not bc "everyone in NH is old LOL" as some have said. It's bc young folks never outvote those over 45. No, not even in 08...
3/ Look at the 08 exits. Youth was 18%, while over 65 was 16%, yes. But 45-64 was 2x larger as share of the vote. And the country has gotten older since 08. Thus, more older folks now than then as a percentage of the whole...Meaning if "NH is old" so is America...
4/ But to some, facts don't matter, bc they apparently think the nation is like whatever gentrified part of Brooklyn they live in, or like their critical theory class, and if not, screw it, we'll just outvote them. I wish they would...I wish we all lived in a district like AOCs..
5/ ...I wished that kind of thing when I was 20 & voted in a POTUS election the 1st time & every time since. It never happens. Not even in 72 when 18yr olds could vote for 1st time & were arguably MORE active than now & where the sheer no. of baby boomers made that demo HUGE..
6/ So unless folk can demonstrate w/evidence -- not platitudes or OK boomer memes (which are actually hilarious but won't change facts on the ground) -- that the 18-44 vote will b much larger than the over 45, it really does matter how older folk break. I wish it weren't so...
7/ But it is. Maybe it will be radically different this time. I hope so, bc whomever younger folk prefer tends to comport w/ who I do, ideologically. But history is a thing. So is the law of parsimony, so assumptions that require lots of rare things to happen aren't likely...
8/ Bc this is an aging nation, the political preferences of older folk have an outsized influence on elections. This sucks. That said, raging against it or thinking that mentioning it is a Neo-lib trick to suppress youth turnout (as I've heard suggested) won't change it...
9/ So Bernie's camp needs data that shows the likely turnout among younger voters relative to older ones in key states and areas. Not national numbers, and not rally sizes in Queens or progressive towns that are surrounded by older and less prog communities w/higher turnout...
10/ Actual numbers about propensity to vote and the percentage-of-the-vote-breakdowns to show that that propensity will be enough to overcome significant deficits for him with folks over 45...
11/ Please note...This is NOT an argument for why Bernie shouldn't be the nom. I shouldn't have to say this but I do, because Bernie Twitter is a thing that thinks attacking any question, just for it having been asked, is tantamount to activism. It is not.
12/ I would love for this data to exist and show that this youth groundswell is a thing, so much so that we can ignore the majority of those my age or older. But some folks has maths problem, which I don't think they can solve by wishful thinking...
