Medina County Voting Patterns by Age Groups

Medina County has 12,821 voters who are between 18-30 years of age. In 2006, 3,626 of them voted and 9,195 didn't vote. Those figures translate to a turn-out of 28.2%. What is interesting is to compare those figures with the age group of 31-50 year olds. In that age group there are 40,370 Medina County voters and 18,095 didn't vote in 2006. That translates into a turn-out of 55.2%, or almost 30 points greater than the 18030 age group.

Neither one of the above two age groups, however, did as good as Medina County voters age 51-65. In that age group there are 29,160 voters and only 8,144 didn't vote in the 2006 election. That translates into a turn-out of 72%. In the 66-86 age group, which did even better, there are 12,658 voters and only 3205 didn't vote, which is a turn-out of 75%.

The interesting things for Medina County Democrats is that based on the 2004 CNN exit poll for Ohio, the group that votes the least is the most likely to vote Democratic. In 2004 the CNN exit poll showed that voters in the 18-29 year old bracket voted for Kerry over Bush by 56-42%, and was the only age group in Ohio to favor Kerry over Bush. The worst age group, by the way, was 65 and older which split for Bush over Kerry by 57 to 43%.

Assuming that the CNN exit poll results for Ohio in general reflect what happened in Medina County in 2004, Medina County Democrats need to focus more attention on younger voters. Every 1000 additional votes out of that age group should result in a Democratic gain of 140 votes over Repubicans. Thus, increasing the turn-out by 5,000 votes in that age group would be worth a net gain of 700 votes. That may seem like a relatively small number until you start doing that all across Ohio. Then the number starts getting more impressive.