JP Updates has picked up on interesting stats out of last week’s Viriginia’s Governor Race:
President Obama won the 18-29 age group by a solid margin of 23 points over the “main-stream moderate” Romney. It was probably enough to give Obama a second term. But guess what? According to the VAGOV exit polls, Ken Cuccinelli, who was smeared as the most rigid right winger on social issues, lost this age group by only 5 points 40% to 45%. Sarvis the Libertarian picked up the rest 15%.
For broader context, Democrat McAuliffe picked up only 45% of this group while Democrat Obama won 60% in 2012. The GOP-Libertarian tickets picked up a joint 55% in Virginia while Moderate Republican Romney picked up only 37% of this group in 2012. But because the GOP-Libertarian tickets in Virginia were split, it permitted the Democrat to win the election despite losing in a landslide this focused-on-social-issue age group.
It gets better. The exit polls were off in favor of Terry McAuliffe by a 4.5% margin which means Cuccinelli didn’t lose this group 40%-45%; he instead essentially tied McAuliffe.