With today’s Iowa caucus in the middle of Christmas Break, conventional wisdom says that young people won’t show up to participate. But with the stakes as high as they are, youth advocates are working over time to defy that assumption. Iowa PIRG has enlisted 250 college students to get 20 of their friends to caucus on Election Day, and the Young Voter PAC has raised money to provide transportation for students who are from out-of-state to get back to Caucus. With an unprecedented close three-way race for the Democratic nomination, as well as the rising trend of youth voting, a lot of students are making it back to Iowa to participate in their first caucus. And if enough make it back, Barack Obama should win.

Carla Olszewski attends college at Drake University, but is from Illinois. She drove back to school early to caucus for Obama – and has brought four of her friends with her. “We have been very involved in the campaign this past semester,” she said, noting that Obama has the largest student group on her campus. “We’ve had presidential candidates coming out of our ears all semester, and we felt that it was important enough for us to get back to Iowa in time for the caucus.” With financial help from Youth Voter PAC, other students are coming back as well – some as far away as Colorado.

There are 480,000 young people in Iowa between the ages of 18-29, and over 100,000 enrolled at the various colleges. Iowa election law clearly lets out-of-state students who attend school in Iowa to participate in the caucus, but some candidates this year have grumbled about this practice. When Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd both complained about it, the Youth Voter PAC started a Facebook group demanding they “stop telling young voters to stay home.” Now the question is how many will make it back to attend – and it may be larger than expected.

Youth voter turnout has markedly increased in the past five years – the 2004 presidential elections saw a 25% increase in turnout among 18-24 year olds, and in 2006 the youth vote surged by nearly two million votes over 2002 levels. With an organized peer-to-peer outreach effort, young people who normally don’t get involved are much more likely to. The Residential Hall Association at Drake teamed up with Iowa PIRG to register students in the dorms to vote – and to get them to commit to come back for the Caucus.

Zach Moses, a junior at Iowa State University, used Facebook to organize a “Caucus Party” with his friends. Through Iowa PIRG, which is doing a non-partisan voter outreach effort, he got over 50 students to sign a pledge card that they will attend the caucus. “It’s a great responsibility being an Iowan to be part of the process,” he said. Now the challenge is to get them to follow up, but Moses is confident that they will. “A lot of people are making it back to Des Moines.”

Iowa has a caucus, rather than a primary, which can be challenging for first-time voters. There is no secret ballot, voters have to publicly declare their candidate of choice, and partisans then try to recruit supporters of minor candidates who did not get 15% on the first ballot. But Alison Sink, a junior at the University of Northern Iowa who will caucus for the first time, is comfortable with the system. “It’s a way to stand up and show what you believe in,” she said. “It’s a very unique opportunity that you don’t get elsewhere.”

The late Paul Wellstone was always fond of saying that “the kids won it” for him in 1990, when he defied all expectations to defeat an entrenched U.S. Senator from Minnesota. In recent years, with the War in Iraq, economic woes and anxiety about global warming, young people are becoming more engaged in electoral politics – and despite an Iowa caucus scheduled while most students are “home for the holidays,” we may see a surprising turnout this year. And if that happens, it will help Barack Obama.

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