DENVER—Mass. Gov. Deval L. Patrick '78 spoke about the rise of the youth vote to a group of Harvard affiliates in Denver for the Democratic National Convention.

“The main questions that each of us should ask,” Patrick said at the Brown Palace Hotel on Monday, “are how we engage and why we should engage young people in politics.”

The first-term governor and early supporter of Barack Obama said that, despite his support for his party, he is a “frustrated Democrat” and that “the Democratic Party has perfected how to win and not why we should win.” Patrick said young people are so desperate for real leadership that they would be open to any strong leader with a powerful vision, regardless of what party the candidate identified with.

After Patrick’s speech, a panel discussed the historical place of recent trends in youth voting.

IOP Director of Polling John Della Volpe pointed out that prior to the September 11th attacks, most young people were interested in community service, but not many followed politics. Since then, however, he said there has been “a remarkable shift.” More than 40% of 18-21 year olds voted in the 2004 election, compared to just under 30% who voted in the 2000 election.

Volpe unveiled a nationally representative survey the IOP conducted between July 28th and August 12th of this year. Of 1,031 individuals between 18 and 24 years old, 55% supported Democratic presumptive nominee Obama in this year’s presidential election, while only 32% supported Republican presumptive nominee John McCain.

Obama also had a wide lead over McCain on level of enthusiasm among supporters in the 18-24 age bracket, with 83% of Obama supporters saying that they were at least “excited” about the election, versus 56% for McCain. However, a plurality of young voters (31% to 28%) said they trusted McCain to be a better commander-in-chief than Obama – despite disproportionately trusting Obama to better handle foreign policy and the war in Iraq.

Volpe added that the youth vote is affecting the political preferences of older voters in a measurable way that’s never been seen before, particularly among Democrats.

Joe McCarthy, a dean at HKS, said the IOP data is of “tremendous value,” and that it reflected trends he’d seen among his students.

“[HKS] saw a 50% jump in applications following 9/11, and this higher level has been sustained ever since,” he said.

—Staff writer Prateek Kumar can be reached at kumar@fas.harvard.edu.