"Young voters -- a wild card in 2006 U.S. elections"

Reuters:

A nationwide survey released this month showed young Americans prefer Democrats to Republicans by a 21-point margin, up from 19 percent in April.

That's enough to cost some Republican candidates the race, said Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster who analyzed the survey taken by the nonpartisan "Young Voter Strategies."

He said if young voters turn out in November in the same numbers as in the 2002 mid-term elections, they could give Democrats a 1.8 percentage point advantage, enough to sway any of several razor-tight races this year.

"We can do a better job, as Republicans, addressing the registration of the younger voters," he said.

But Democrats also face a challenge. Although they have a clear advantage in numbers, the poll shows young Republicans are more intensely loyal and likely to vote.

"The Democratic base continues to need work," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake in Washington. "Young voters are not very engaged."

Hans Riemer, political director of Rock the Vote, is trying to change that. The youth-and-civics group launched its first political advertisements for 2006 on Friday.

The ads will appear on MySpace.com, a youth social networking site with more than 100 million members. "MySpace was a small factor in the 2004 election but it's taken off since then and it's just a different animal now," he said.

Text-messaging with cell phones is another new tool.

Mark Warner, a former Virginia governor who is testing the waters for a presidential campaign, launched a nationwide voter registration drive on Friday targeting young cell phone users.

"Finding young people is often hard, but they always have a phone," said Heather Smith, director of "Young Voter Strategies," an affiliate of George Washington University. Textvoter.org, a new Web site, is speeding the process along.

Much is at stake. The so-called "Generation Y" of Americans born between 1977 and 1994 -- shaped by the September 11 attacks, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina -- in nine years will make up a third of the electorate, or about 82 million people.

Here's fifteen year old Avery Lowery's new video, "Don't Shut Up - Stand Up."