Young Obama voters may not help down-ticket Democrats

Every four years the news media and political pundits put special status on a voter bloc that will decide who wins and loses the coming presidential election. This election's it group are young voters.

As a Republican and a supporter of Dino Rossi's campaign for governor, I'm told I should be worried that younger voters will make this election miserable for the GOP because they will turn out strong for Barack Obama, and keep voting Democratic down the ticket.

The theory goes like this — young people turned out in droves for Obama during the Democratic primaries. These same young people could be the difference in November for Obama. They will also vote into office many Democrats running in other down ballot races.

Maybe, but I'm not there yet because I keep asking myself this: How is it that the generation that single-handedly forced America's most powerful industry — the entertainment industry — to change its business models to meet young independent buying habits will suddenly vote a straight party ticket this fall?

So far, initial evidence for this election points to young people behaving more like ticket-splitting independent voters than true partisans. As I look at this fall's elections and how younger voters will act, I'm not worried yet about their impact on the rematch between Gov. Christine Gregoire and Rossi — because I believe those 35-and-younger voters will fall into one of three categories when we look back at the 2008 elections:

• They will vote for Obama, and then stop voting;

• They will bounce around the ticket voting for candidates from both parties;

• They will vote a straight party ticket for the Democrats.

Two of those possible outcomes are likely good for Rossi, and the third may end up holding a fairly modest number of voters. But let's move beyond rhetoric and enhance the debate.

In the Oregon primary in May, we got a good look at what passionate Obama supporters might do when it comes to other races on the ballot. Some 636,000 Democrats voted in the May primary — a ballot that included primary races for president, Senate, attorney general, secretary of state and several other races.

On that day, more than 90,000 Democrats voted for Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton, then didn't bother to vote in the fiercely contested Democratic primary for Senate. The drop-off totals grew as voters moved down the ballot — more than 100,000 Democrats voted in the presidential primary, but not in contested primaries for secretary of state and attorney general.

Of course, no one really knows if the drop-off voters were young or not, but the campaign press stories have pointed to the truly passionate Obama supporters as being younger. If this phenomenon of passionate Obama voters making just one choice on the ballot, then ending their voting, happens this fall, that will help turn the younger voter focus for down-ballot races into a wash.

Second, will these younger voters coming to the polls mostly because of passion for Obama vote a straight Democratic line as they move down the ballot?

Again, I think it's very difficult to pigeonhole these voters into hard Democrats.

Recent polling suggests these voters are as closely divided on the race for governor as the rest of Washington's citizens. In a recent KING-TV poll, Gregoire led Rossi among all voters by 50 percent to 47 percent. Among younger voters between ages of 18 and 34, the result was Gregoire 50 and Rossi 45. These numbers could change several times between now and Election Day, and I personally believe it won't be younger people who decide the governor's race — I think independent voters of all ages will be the tipping point for either candidate.

The bigger reason I question the possibility of young people coming to the polls as a huge bloc for all Democrats is anecdotal evidence suggests this generation despises being pushed into conventional groups. I have no scientific data to back up this assertion — just evidence gathered from discussions with young people, professors and administrators at two major Northwest universities where I work as a consultant and member of the boards of trustees.

What I have learned speaks volumes about doubts we should have about whether young people will vote a straight party ticket. My associates at these universities report that today's students behave more like consumers than traditional students and want to understand what value they will get from taking a certain class.

We also see many young people do not join groups that many previous generations joined when in college — at many universities, membership in fraternities and sororities have dropped. Simply put, the young today appear to not be joiners — they prefer to figure out their own paths, as opposed to aligning with traditionally easy-to-identify segments of society.

I believe many young people today have grown up with a fierce independent streak and are hard-wired these days to flinch at being told what they can and can't do, and what limits there might be to their choices.

Finally, I'm also told that many college students today want to be entrepreneurs as soon as they leave college. As a type, entrepreneurs are some of the most independent people in our nation, and chafe at the notion of being pigeonholed.

I'm sure many readers will offer compelling arguments that tear apart my premise. But it seems highly unlikely that a new generation of voters that has spent its formative years coloring outside the lines will suddenly vote a straight party ticket this fall. My gut says this generation of fiercely independent, consumer-first voters will instead mostly vote for Obama, and then leave the ballot box, or jump around the ballot from party to party.