Passing the Torch to a New Generation

After gaining the youth vote in 1960, John F. Kennedy famously declared in his inaugural address that “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.” This line was delivered partly because Kennedy himself seemed the face of a new generation, but also partly because he had won the youth vote 2 to 1 against his rival Richard Nixon.
Since George McGovern's loss to Nixon in 1972, the youth vote has been tiny - a mere blip on pollsters' computer screens. Any political scientist could tell you that the vote of people 18-29 is now always the smallest of any age group, and they'd further make the point that any politician who could galvanize that group and get them to come to the polls in large numbers would surely win an election. So now that the 2008 election is over, let 's look at the new numbers as provided by The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE):

Year	Youth Voter Turnout Estimated by CIRCLE (18-29)	Percentage change since previous election	Number of young people who voted in nation
1996	37%		14.5 million
2000	41%	+4	16.2 million
2004	48%	+7	19.4 million
2008	52-53%	+4-5	22.8 - 23.1 million

With a modest increase of 4 or 5 percentage points, young people came to the polls last Tuesday in larger numbers than in any election since 1972. Still, according to the NY Times exit poll data, young voters remained the smallest voting group, accounting for just 18% of the total vote, or the smallest percentage of the four age group categories (18-29, 30-44, 45-59, 60 & older).
But taken alone, this data is misleading. Try this for context: the increase in youth votes accounts for at least 60% of the overall increase in the number of votes [across all age groups], suggesting that this year’s election mobilized young people more than any other group. In other words, young people showed up in 2008.
We can take the youth vote impact even further - according to CIRCLE, young voters favored Barack Obama by more than 2 to 1. Politico.com reports this morning that 66% of voters under age 30 preferred Obama while just 32% favored McCain—nearly four times the size of John F. Kennedy's lead with the group in 1960. Do the math on that and you find that Obama received 7.8 million more 18-29 year old votes than John McCain. Obama's total popular vote margin over McCain? 7.1 million.
From Politico: "In other words, never in post-war American politics have youth voted so differently than older generations as they did in 2008... Obama's lead with the group this year is easily the largest of any newly elected president in the era of modern polling."
At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to a fairly new Senator Obama and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama later told an aide. On Tuesday, the young voters of America ensured he'll have to run with the torch for the next four years - it had indeed been passed.

Sources:
CIRCLE: http://www.civicyouth.org/
NY Times: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/exit-polls.html
Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15441.html
Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/167582