Last month, Nate "Poblano" Silver used his 50-state regression model to demonstrate how influential young voters could be this election cycle:

Poblano found that increasing the youth vote by 25 percent would give Obama 16 additional electoral votes and boost his chance of beating McCain by nearly 7 percent (assuming that this group breaks 70-30 towards Obama):

While 18-24 year-olds are spread rather evenly across all 50 states, Poblano points to Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota as states with traditions of high youth turnout. His baseline currently has them all in Obama’s column. But if young voters flock to the polls come November – as they’re expected to –these three states could end up far out of McCain’s reach.

Of course, the $64,000 question is how to get those eligible voters registered and to the polls. Michael Connery, guest blogging at The Nation, says that while youth turnout is never assured, the climate is ripe for a bulge in youth participation:

- Over 6 million young people cast their ballots in this primary contest, more than double the turnout from 2004 or 2000 (the comparable years for Democrats and Republicans, respectively). Young people greatly increased their "share of the electorate" and were the driving force behind rising turnout.

- Young people voted Democratic more than 2 - 1.

- 4.9 million young voters cast their ballot for a Democratic candidate.

Image courtesy of Obamarama.