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Ellison's Must Read of the Day

Ellison Barber
March 12, 2014

My must read of the day is "Obama warns Democrats: Beware another midterm election defeat like 2010," in the Washington Post:

Obama flew to New York City for a pair of fundraisers Tuesday afternoon, the latest stop on his 2014 mission to remind Democrats of the disaster that was 2010 and the risk they run this year if they do not show up in full force. […]

If his recent remarks are any guide, Obama is worried Democrats might not realize the threat they face in November.

"In the midterms, Democrats too often don’t vote. Too often, when there’s not a presidential election, we don’t think it’s sexy, we don’t think it’s interesting," Obama said last week at a Democratic National Committee event. "People tune out. And because the electorate has changed, we get walloped. It’s happened before, and it could happen again."

Democrats, and this administration in particular, put a lot of stock in young people—and banking on them is risky. It’s not that their vote and involvement is irrelevant, it’s just that they’re not very reliable as a voting block. They turned out in droves in 2008, only drop off in 2010—young people don’t typically vote in midterm elections anywhere near the numbers they do in presidential elections.

Right now this inconsistency is apparent in the enrollment of the president’s signature legislation. The latest report from HHS shows that enrollment among young invincibles has remained relatively static, and it’s still significantly less than the 40 percent CBO projected they would need to balance the risk pools.

Despite countless PR efforts aimed specifically towards them, young people haven’t been signing up for Obamacare, and that makes it seem more unlikely that they’ll crowd the election booths.