Hopefuls seek young voters
STATE COLLEGE — Like college students cramming for finals, political candidates are trying to brush up support among young voters in the closing days of Pennsylvania's high-profile election campaigns.
Penn State alone has become a regular pit stop in recent days for the major contestants in the races to become Pennsylvania's next U.S. senator and governor.
But the sentiment isn't just a Pennsylvania affair.
President Barack Obama has tried to appeal to college crowds with stops at Ohio State University, Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota. He's scheduled to rally more students on Saturday at Temple University in Philadelphia.
But whether the student appeal that Obama and Democrats harvested in 2008 can be repeated this year is uncertain.
"If they vote, then they'll have an impact, but I'm not sure how excited they are," Charles Brooks, a 28-year-old Penn State graduate student, said as he took a break between classes Wednesday morning.
"It doesn't have the same energy as last time," said Brooks, who voted for Democrats Joe Sestak and Dan Onorato for senator and governor, respectively, by absentee ballot.
Much of that is because of the voter apathy associated with non-presidential races, said G. Terry Madonna, a pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.
For others, this year's midterm election lacks the star power of 2008 — when Obama, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin all drew headlines.
"Compared to the presidential election, most of the people barely even know there's an election happening, let alone who the candidates are," Julie Ventura, president of the College Democrats group at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, said in a phone interview when asked about the level of involvement on campus compared to two years ago.
Ventura, a 22-year-old political science major remained optimistic about the Democrats' chances, even though interest among younger voters may not be as high.
"During the presidential election, it was a huge deal. There were these groundbreaking things coming through in having a woman candidate, having an African-American candidate," she said. "It was so new and different than before."
A Franklin & Marshall College poll released Wednesday shows Onorato trailing Republican Tom Corbett among likely voters — 47 percent to 32 percent — in the race to replace Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell. The poll showed Onorato trailing among voters under age 35, 38 percent to 32 percent.
The same survey showed Sestak losing to Republican nominee Pat Toomey among likely voters, 43 percent to 36 percent. Sestak also was trailing — 39 percent to 32 percent — among voters age 18-34.
Madonna said the likely voters "were probably a little more conservative and a little more Republican" than the registered pool of voters in the age group.
"What the Democrats want to do is to turn out the Obama 18- to 29-year-old (voters). If they can do that, it can be of considerable help ... when they are down as much as they are in the enthusiasm gap," Madonna said.
That age group comprised about 18 percent of the electorate in 2008, which was about average for turnout — though voters heavily favored Democrats, he added.
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