The Republican Majority and its Rise
When Obama won the election in 2008, he was seen as a hero of the youth. Obama had a huge presence on Youtube (remember his Obama Girl), was the first president to do an “AMA” (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit, and on college campuses. He campaigned for “hope”. Obama based his campaign off the idea that the youth were an untapped resource of votes that could sway the tides for him. As the youth had taken to the internet to bash George Bush for the 2004 election (which may have inspired the 56% vote for Kerry vs 43% for Bush among those 18-29), Obama catered to the internet crowd. The more exposure he had on the internet, the more people talked about him and his “great goals”.
In their article, Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift argued that it was this concept that won the election for Obama. Obama saw the wave of new voters that voted against George Bush in his 2004 election and thought he could inspire that new crowd to swing the tide in his favor. In the 2008 election, 66% of voters 19-28 voted for Obama as opposed to McCain.
They argued that this great difference was caused by an informational cascade in regards to the politicians platforms. The more people who talked about Obama online inspired more people to feel more strongly for his campaign which in turn caused more people to discuss it. People who normally aren’t into politics heard earfuls on both candidates and got their information about them solely from the internet where the opinions were unavoidable. So when it came time to vote, there was an increased awareness of Obama’s good side and McCain’s bad.
Now fast forward to 2014 for the midterm elections, there was a similar informational cascade against Obama. When it came to show that Obama couldn’t possibly live up to all the hype that was built up for him, people began to think maybe the Republicans can put things back together and there was a backlash back at Obama in the Republican’s favor. Without an informational cascade to inspire a Democratic youth vote, the crawl back to Republicans took over the burst of Democratic power that won Obama the election.
Sources:
http://www.poconorecord.com/article/20141109/OPINION/141109480/101135/NEWS04
http://www.nonprofitvote.org/documents/2013/09/america-goes-to-the-polls-2012-voter-participation-gaps-in-the-2012-presidential-election.pdf
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_04.html