Voting among young adults increased this year and appears to have helped Barack Obama win some key states.
More than 52 percent of those aged 18 to 29 (23 million) voted, about 5 percentage points more than in 2004, according to a preliminary projection by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).
Voters under 30 represented 18 percent of the overall turnout this year, according to CIRCLE, an increase of 1 percentage point from each of the three previous presidential elections.
About 66 percent of voters under 30 preferred Obama, according to CIRCLE, which is based at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.
The youth vote “is turning states that [Obama] would’ve lost or barely won into more comfortable margins,” John Della Volpe, director of polling for the Harvard University Institute of Politics, told MSNBC.
