by Portia Porter
Senator Barack Obama took home a victory on November 4, but the high percentage of African-American voters may not have been what made the election go his way.
According to MSNBC, young voters had a record turnout on Election Day. Reports indicate that the youngest members of the country’s electorate voted Tuesday in higher numbers than any other election.
Diandra Schonyers, a freshman at Rowan University, voted for the first time on Tuesday, and she only turned 18 years-old two weeks before Election Day.
“After I voted, I felt like I voted for a candidate that has the best interest of a lot of people, that are my age, at heart”, said Schonyers.
Schonyers also previously said that she wasn’t voting for Obama because of his race, like a lot of people suspected. She voted for Obama because she believes that he will hold true to his promise of change. However, that didn’t stop her from expressing her feelings about him being the first African-American President of the United States.
“I was in shock because CNN said that they projected that the winner was Barack Obama”, Schonyers said. “I actually had to call my mom to see if it was real”.
Sixty-eight percent of young voters preferred Obama over John McCain. According to CIRCLE, a non-partisan organization that promotes research on the political engagement of Americans between ages 15 and 25, that is the highest share of youth vote obtained by any candidate since 1976.
“It’s actually extraordinary,” said Peter Levine, the director of CIRCLE. Traditionally, young people tend to support the same candidate, by roughly the same percentage, as voters older than 30, although they might be “just a tick or two more Democratic,” he says. “But because they are so apparently tilted in one direction, turnout becomes the issue.”
Kimberly Jordan, a freshman at Rowan University, also shared an experience similar to Schonyers. She too voted for the first time on Tuesday and she can’t believe that after her first time voting, she helped to elect the first African-American president.
“I felt like I was apart of history after I voted”, she said. “Even though I am black, I didn’t vote based on race, but him being black is an added bonus on top of all of his qualifications”.
Jordan also feels like Obama is setting an example for other children, even her own future children.
“All kids say, ‘when I grow up, I want to be the President’, but now it’s like, it really can happen”, said Jordan.
On Tuesday and even before that day, Rowan University students made their way back home to be apart of a historical election. Some even went as far as to Atlantic City, NJ to vote. Freshman, Abrina Hillson said that traveling wasn’t her issue because she took the time out a week ago, to mail in her absentee ballot.
Hillson, who was previously undecided about who she was going to vote for, ended up voting for Obama in this election. This was her first time voting as well, and she feels that she will forever be apart of history.
“Every one has their time to shine”, she said. “Now, it’s all of the African-American’s time to shine. We’ve been in this country for so long, so it’s about time we had a black leader. We’ve been behind the White House, we’ve been inside of the White House, but we’ve never had control of the White House”.
To check out Portia Porter’s election preview story click on this link here.
