The New York Times Reports: Interviews in Nevada and across the country suggest that most of his college supporters of 2008 are still inclined to vote for him. But the Obama ground army of 2008 is hardly ready to jump back into the trenches, potentially depriving Mr. Obama of what had been an important force in his victory.
Mr. Obama’s advisers, while acknowledging the shift, said they were confident that the loss of these workers would be negated by an influx of new students who have turned of voting age since 2008. Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said there had been eight million voters ages 18 to 21 registered since the last election, most of whom were Democrats.
“Their brothers and sisters started it, and they are going to finish it,” Mr. Messina said Monday. “They are storming into our office. Our volunteer numbers are up from where we thought they would be.”
Yet even Mr. Obama’s supporters say it seems unlikely that the president — given the difficulties of these past three years and the mood of the electorate of all ages — will ever be able to replicate the youthful energy that became such a defining hallmark of his campaign. In the last election, Sandra Allen hosted a group of fellow Brown University students at her home to call voters in North Carolina and Indiana on Election Day, a common practice in the Obama campaign. Mr. Obama won those states to the shock of Republicans.
Asked if she would be doing similar work for Mr. Obama this time, Ms. Allen responded: “Not now. And I will not be streaking across the main green of any campus with hundreds of thrilled people were he to be re-elected next year.”
Ms. Allen graduated last year and, after surveying the job market, decided to take refuge in graduate school to wait things out. “I’m not optimistic,” she said.
Jason Tieg, 22, a student at Brigham Young University-Idaho, voted for Mr. Obama with great enthusiasm in 2008. But now, struggling to find a part-time job to help him through school, he is not even sure he would do that again. “I got a job in July as a custodian on campus, but I lost it again when they needed to cut down.”
“I don’t know if I’ll support him next year,” he said.
It is hard to find a state that more vividly illustrates the danger to Obama from declining enthusiasm among young voters than Nevada. Few parts of the country have been harder hit by this recession, with stubborn double-digit unemployment, an unending wave of mortgage foreclosures and huge numbers of homeless. And there are few states where young voters were so crucial to Mr. Obama’s victory.
Mark Triola, who was president of Young Democrats of Nevada in 2008, said at the time, the Democratic organization at U.N.L.V. was about three times as big as the Republican organization. By last year, he said, they were about equal, a trend that students there say has not changed this year. (For his part, Mr. Triola graduated in the spring and found a job in the communications industry — “ideally probably not what I was looking for, but I don’t have any room to complain given what’s going on,” he said.)
Jolie Glaser, a gung-ho supporter of Mr. Obama in 2008 when she attended college here, has taken to doing volunteer work for a golf charity as she looks for a job in the nonprofit sector. Her enthusiasm for the president has dampened.
“It’s hard to be a passionate follower of him,” she said. “It’s easier to be a thoughtful supporter.”
Sarah Farr, 20, a communications student, could devote endless energy to helping Mr. Obama as a student here four years ago. But now, with graduation approaching in 2013, she said that was the last thing she and her friends who also worked for him were contemplating.
“I don’t have as much enthusiasm this time as I did last time,” Ms. Farr said. “Everybody is just focused on themselves and trying to get through school.”
