According to this story, the youth vote may have been more significant than exit polls indicated in 2004. Exit polls showed that just 9% of those voting in November of 2004 were in the 18-24 year old category. The figure was the same in 2000. New Census Bureau data, however, shows that 47% of eligible 18-24 year olds voted in this last election--up 11 points from the 36% number in 2000. Young voters still had the lowest turnout of all groups, but no other group of voters increased their turnout by more than 5%. One important thing to keep in mind about these statistics however: they depend upon people being honest when questioned about whether or not they voted and respondents are questioned long after the election.
I report this in the interest of fairness--in light of what I said here. But I think what I said then still stands. There was no indication from these numbers about the much more interesting question: How did these new voters vote? I haven’t seen anything on this but I still believe the numbers tilted slightly toward Bush--as they did across the age spectrum.
The young voters were far from tilting toward Bush. The young voter age group (18-24) voted overwhelmingly for Kerry. CNN reported 54% Kerry, 45% Bush. In fact, Kerry received a higher percentage of the vote from young people than any other age group. In addition, not only was participation up 11 points for young voters, we must remember there were more young voters registered this time around as well. So, young turnout was much greater than in 2000. This is certainly something to look forward to for future elections. By the way, for more information on the young vote, I recommend reading the report issued by CIRCLE- https://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/FactSheets/FS-PresElection04.pdf