ShareThisBy LAUREN SMITH
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
In one of the tightest races in nation, one that could prove pivotal for control of Congress, New Mexico GOP Rep. Heather Wilson and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid are battling it out for the Albuquerque-area congressional seat.
The latest poll numbers show Madrid pulling ahead by as many as 8 percentage points. But another survey gives her a whopping lead of more than 33 percent.
The latter result can be found on Facebook (www.facebook.com), a social networking Web site, popular among students and young professionals.
The situation is much the same in Tennessee, where recent traditional polls show the fight to become a U.S. senator is tilting toward GOP candidate Bob Corker, who is a handful of percentage points ahead of Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr.
On Facebook, however, Ford is ahead by more than 41 percent.
In normal off-year elections_ such as the one coming up next week_ it is mostly older, hard-core partisans, who go to the polls. Young people, who cast few votes in these typically less-publicized elections, wield little influence, political analysts say.
This year may be different. With so many hotly contested House and Senate races at stake, young voters could have an enormous impact on the outcome.
As the days wind down before next week's elections, Web sites like Facebook are trying to engage the elusive 41.9 million eligible voters nationwide between the ages of 18 and 29.
Facebook launched its "Election 2006 network" on Sept.1, and has put on line 1,400 profiles of congressional candidates and other contenders. A few weeks later it started "Election Pulse," a page that ranks those running and tallies top campaign issues by how many supporters each has.
"Election 2006 was started to give younger voters a voice," Brandee Barker, a Facebook spokeswoman, said. "They are very active with their opinions on the site."
The site was founded only two years ago with the aim of connecting people through social networks. Now, it has more than 9.5 million registered users in more than 40,000 geographic, work-related, collegiate and high school networks.
Already more than a million users are engaged in campaign issue groups or in supporting candidates, Barker said.
On each candidate page, people can post messages for visitors to read on a virtual "wall." While some messages are humorous _ one person posted "Heather Wilson is so hot right now!" on the page devoted to Wilson _most are political analyses of issues.
"Young people are taking over and building a lot of community on the Internet- that's a space where politics can come alive," said Hans Riemer, political director of Rock the Vote, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to building political power for young people. "Information can be shared much more easily and issues can be discussed much more readily, and I think it's going to have a huge impact over time."
Rock the Vote (www.rockthevote.com) joined forces with Facebook in early October in an attempt to spread political awareness and register voters. Already, the organization has registered 2,300 young people to vote through Facebook, and 12,500 Facebook members have joined Rock the Vote, Riemer said.
"I think that young people are going to have a huge impact on this election because they are going to be voting two-to-one Democratic," Riemer said. "In terms of how young people can make a difference, if they really turn out two-to-one Democratic, they'll probably throw a lot of elections" to Democratic candidates.
