Economy is No. 1 issue in election for young voters

By Austin Collins
Contributions by Jamie Underwood and Monique Cunin
Edited by Jillian Hare

Young potential voters in Columbia say the economy has become the issue this election, reflecting a national shift in voter concerns.

Since the mid-September meltdown on Wall Street, the floundering economy has become the top issue on 55 percent of Americans' minds for the presidential election, overtaking the war in Iraq.

"I'm very interested in how the economy is doing because I just graduated and got a job, and this is obviously going to effect me in the long run," Zack West, a 22-year-old engineer at the South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. in Columbia said. "When it comes to my 401(k) and stuff, I want to make sure I can retire comfortably."

According to a telephone poll in September by Rock the Vote, young adults echoed that sentiment. Of the 650 people age 18 to 29 questioned, 41 percent cited the economy as their biggest concern, but the war remained a strong worry.

The same percentage said the next president's first moves in office should be to act on the economy, while 24 percent said he should first bring the troops home. The margin of error was 4.4 percentage points.

Youths "are like any other citizen," said David Rohde, a political science professor at Duke University concerned with campaigns and elections. "They are either currently employed or looking forward to being employed. They have expenses just like their elders do, and so the economy weighs very heavily on them."

William Moore, a College of Charleston political science professor, thinks young adults working full time have the most interest in the economy, but college students have their own concerns.

"They are thinking in terms of getting their entry-level job," Moore said. "If you are in a recession, the opportunity to find those jobs becomes obviously much more limited."

Emanueal Smith, a 21-yeard-old economics major at the University of South Carolina, said the economy worries him, as he will be entering the job market next May.

"With the economy the way it is now, changes need to be made to fix things so I can have a good future," he said.

When hard economic times are an issue, Democrats have historically had an advantage, Moore said, beginning with the 1932 election in the midst of the Great Depression, when Democrat Franklin Roosevelt soundly defeated incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover.

The most recent Gallup Poll had  Barack Obama holding a 32 percentage point advantage (64 percent to 32 percent) over John McCain among 18- to 29-year-olds.  Obama led by 11 percentage points among all registered voters.

"One, he is not a Republican, and the voters who have the economy as the highest salience issue blame the Republicans more than the Democrats for the economic problems," Rohde said. "Second, he is younger, and thereby he has a greater appeal to the youngest voters." 

Rhode also said Obama is making a greater effort to raise the economic issues because President Bush and the Republicans draw much of the blame, rightly or wrongly, for the current economic crisis, and that makes McCain fight an uphill battle.

Nichole Leonard, a 19-year-old student at the Kenneth Shuler School of Cosmetology and Nail Design in Columbia, plans to vote for Obama because she just hopes for a change.

She expects the economy "is going to get worse before it gets better."

"But it definitely needs to get better," Leonard said. "If people don't make money, then they're not going out to eat, and I'm a waitress, so that affects my money as well."

But West, the engineer, doesn't give Obama the edge on economics. To him, conservative values are the more important aspect that tips his vote to McCain.

"I don't lean one way or the other for either candidate based on the economy," West said. "I plan on voting for McCain, but for other reasons, not because of the economy."

Three percent of young adults told Gallup they were undecided or voting for a third party.  They are like Carnarri Cofield, a senior management student at USC, who said in late October that she planned to vote but had yet to pick a candidate.

"Our world is in such bad condition, and our youth are set to inherit it in this condition," Cofield said. "These two candidates can be the start of change that will make it a better world for our youth."

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