VA: McAuliffe's Mounting Youth Vote Problem

All eyes this week are appropriately affixed on Pennsylvania, the site of Sen. Arlen Specter's (R, D) forthcoming party defection. Yet, an arguably more contentious primary contest simmers hours south in the ever-purpling state of Virginia.For months, Democratic contenders Terry McAuliffe, Creigh Deeds and Brian Moran have vied aggressively to secure their party's nomination for governor, producing a race so close that preliminary polling 42 days from the vote has identified no consistent or likely front runner. By SurveyUSA's most recent measure, McAuliffe has the edge, besting his closest opponent, Moran, by more than 20 points. That number comes as a shock to Moran fans, however, who only 28 days ago celebrated their candidate's two-point edge over McAuliffe. Needless to say, Virginia's upcoming June 9 party primary should prove eventful, regardless of which Democrat wins.

Indeed, polls are never perfect predictors of election outcomes; the 2008 presidential contest sufficiently illustrates why. But it is nonetheless difficult to ignore at least one "trend" that has emerged in the spate of samples conducted by SurveyUSA, Public Policy Polling (PPP) and a host of other firms: a consistent inability by McAuliffe to sway younger voters, who comprise roughly a quarter of Virginia's eligible voting electorate.

Despite his overall edge in SurveyUSA's figures, McAuliffe -- the former face of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign -- seems only to have culled the support of less than a quarter of the 18 to 34-year-olds the organization surveyed this week. Unfortunately, these figures are hardly outliers. According to PPP's calculations, for example, McAullife lost about 18 percentage points' worth of 18 to 29-year old support just in the month of March. At the same time, both Deeds and Moran expanded their respective leads within this age demographic, subsequently sapping strength from the McAuliffe campaign.

On face, these statistics are moot; politics at any level is merely a glorified game of addition. So long as McAuliffe can piece together crucial in-state demographics and score a majority, the youth vote be damned. It further does not help that these voters at large are perhaps the most unreliable asterisks in American electoral politics. Although young voters turned out in droves in 2008, it is hard to believe the fickle age group would have acted similarly if a youth-oriented candidate did not sit atop their ballots. Put otherwise, it is hard to envision a similar surge in youth turnout in an off-year gubernatorial primary, which McAuliffe must very well understand (if not embrace).

Unfortunately, the dearth of youth support could come to haunt McAuliffe, assuming he actually wins the nomination. According to SurveyUSA's most recent poll, young voters from both parties prefer Republican opponent Bob McDonnell by almost a 2-to-1 ratio, with a little more than 14 percent claiming to be "undecided." That caveat, among other factors, affords McDonnell an early 7-point advantage over McAuliffe, despite the latter's media prominence and fundraising prowess. Although neither Moran nor Deeds, for that matter, has fared any better in hypothetical match-ups against McDonnell, the youth vote deficit is most pronounced in McAuliffe's case, which consequently calls to question whether the transplant candidate has learned anything from previous experience.