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Young voters were the tip of Barack Obama’s political spear in 2008.
Their energy and enthusiasm ultimately helped him win.
The four years of Obama’s first term, however, were tough ones for young voters in Georgia and across the country. Yet when he is publicly sworn in on Monday, young voters will be among the multitude crowding the Capitol Mall. They again put their collective shoulders to the wheel of Obama’s campaign in 2012. Some 60 percent of voters between 18 and 29 backed Obama, according to national exit polls conducted by the Pew Research Center.
Interviews with young voters in Georgia revealed that reasons for their enduring support of Obama were nuanced and went beyond policies pushed or laws passed.
They said they backed Obama because of who they perceive him to be, what they say he stands for and where they say he hopes to take the country.
“He seemed more in touch with the day-to-day things and in touch with people,” said Gantt Thomas, a 23-year old Clayton State University student who voted for Obama in November.
Thomas, a sophomore from Brunswick, said he interrupted his schooling to work and was able to get assistance through the earned income tax credit, something Obama has supported. And Thomas said he has enjoyed other tax filing benefits now that he has returned to school.
Chandler Epp, a 24-year old Georgia Tech graduate who backed Romney, said he thinks a “celebrity factor” was part of Obama’s appeal, and that kept some young voters from looking at his record more critically.
“There’s this celebrity aura that surrounds the president,” Epp said. “He’s this cool guy. He’s the guy who goes on ESPN and talks about his (college basketball) picks. The media shapes this image of this young, hip president.”
Despite the fact that he backed Romney, Epp said business will take him to Washington and he will attend the inauguration ceremony. “I’ll be in silent mourning,” Epp said, chuckling. “I’ll enjoy watching some history.”
Recent history for young voters has been difficult.
During Obama’s first term, the average unemployment rate for Georgia workers in 2011 was 10.1 percent. But for workers between ages 16 and 19, it was 29 percent. For those 20 to 24 years old, it was 15.2 percent, and for those 25 to 34 it was 12.6 percent.
Across the country, those young people who did find work were often underemployed. A 2012 survey and study by Rutgers University professors found that about half of recent college graduates were employed full time, with many turning to graduate school or part-time work. The Rutgers study found that 6 percent of recent college graduates were unemployed and job-hunting, while another 5 percent were unemployed and not looking for a job.
The study found that 42 percent of employed recent college graduates saw their jobs as “just a job to get you by” rather than a career or a stepping-stone toward one.
Debt from college is also an increasingly heavy burden for young Georgia residents.
Georgia’s college graduates left school with an average of $16,568 in debt in 2009, according to figures from the Project on Student Debt. In 2011, the average indebtedness of Georgia’s graduates had risen to $22,443. Georgia graduates struggled under that debt load even after Obama signed into law legislation raising the maximum amount of Pell Grants to $5,500. In 2008-2009, the maximum grant was $4,731.
Despite the struggles of young voters, the last two election cycles have seen them lean heavily toward Obama’s Democratic Party. Pew traced the gap between under-30 voters and the overall result in each presidential election for the past 40 years and found that 2008 and 2012 represented by far the largest separation since the Vietnam War-driven 1972 campaign.
The 60 percent Obama received in 2012 was a small dip from the 66 percent in that age group who supported him in 2008, but it was far more than Sen. John McCain of Arizona got in 2008, and it was more than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney received in November.
“The racial diversity of the country is increasing, but it’s particularly increasing in the young, and that’s one of the major factors here,” said Scott Keeter, Pew’s director of survey research. “I think a second factor, though, is the generational change that we’re seeing that’s not necessarily related to ethnic and racial makeup. It’s attitudes about social issues, just a growing tolerance for people who are different. Same-sex marriage, interracial dating and marriage is very much a sort of non-issue to people under 30.”
Brian Seo, 19, president of the Young Democrats of Georgia Tech, said advances for certain groups – from women to gays to immigrants – have been a hallmark of the Obama era and a primary motivator for him and his generation in supporting the president.
“That vision toward social justice and equality as progress is really captured by the Obama administration,” Seo said.
But Epp said Obama has not been evaluated the way presidents are typically evaluated.
Epp, who works in a public relations firm, said he feels he’s one of the “lucky” few to have found work after graduating from college. He said many of his friends haven’t been so fortunate and had to opt for expensive graduate school programs or underemployment while living with parents.
Obama’s celebrity image, Epp said, obscures a record of failure that lends credibility to the arguments made against Obama’s candidacy back in 2008: that he was unprepared to be president, could not provide executive leadership, could not manage budgets.
“If anything, the last four years proved Obama critics right,” Epp said. “He was unprepared for office. He didn’t know how to manage a budget. We’re spending ourselves into financial ruin.”
The federal debt did soar during Obama’s first term. It stood at $10.6 trillion when he took office in January of 2009, according to figures from the U.S. Treasury Department. In December, it reached $16.4 trillion.
Obama-backed spending, which he argued was necessary to spur economic growth, has contributed to the debt. But so did many policies of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the prescription-drug benefit to Medicare. Bush also signed large packages of tax cuts that have added to the debt — and Obama and Congress extended nearly all of them indefinitely in the recent “fiscal cliff” deal.
Epp said Republicans must not fall into the trap of assuming young voters are Democratic voters. “We can’t just ignore young voters,” he said. In turn, Epp said he wants young voters to look beyond celebrity in assessing a presidential candidate.
“I wish there was more of a concerted effort from young people to study the issues rather than just take cues from the president or the media,” he said.
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