Young Voters to Senate Dems: You’re Welcome!

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Flickr/Momo, Creative CommonsFlickr/Momo, Creative CommonsAs I hopped on the bus Tuesday in San Francisco, I spotted only five 20- to 30-somethings with “I voted” stickers on their coats and hoodies. That’s a far cry from November 2, 2008, when it seemed like every other young person in town sported an Obama t-shirt or an “I voted” sticker. But despite an obvious decrease in hype, youth voter turn out was much as MoJo blogger Kevin Drum predicted: 20%, very similar to other midterm election years.

National youth research center CIRCLE points out that youth turnout was higher—by 1 percent—in states where youth outreach groups were highly active: AZ, CA, CO, FL, OH, OR, and PA.

What, you think a 1 percent difference in a state is chump change in the larger scheme of things? Well, consider this: In Colorado, Sen. Michael Bennet beat Rep. Ken Buck by 1 percent. And in Washington, Sen. Pat Murray won by less than a 1 percent advantage.

So, Ezra Klein is right: Too bad Dems didn’t try harder to reach out to the only constituency that favored Dems last night. And as Jamilah King over at RaceWire points out, expect them to play a lot of catch up in the next two years.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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