Rep. Craig credits student voter turnout at Carleton, St. Olaf for reelection win
NORTHFIELD, Minn. -- Minnesota Congresswoman Angie Craig is crediting the youth vote for her win.
She defeated Republican Tyler Kistner in what was one of the most expensive congressional races this year. But Craig says record turnouts at two college campuses in her 2nd District - St. Olaf and Carleton - pushed her over the edge to victory.
For many of the students in Northfield, abortion was their top issue.
"Not only because I am a woman and the people I love are women, no one has the right to tell a woman what she can and can not do with her body," said Solveig Narum.
"They have been organizing specifically around the issue of abortion rights because I think the Dobbs decision really invigorated a lot of people here," said a Democratic student organizer at Carleton, Max Scrota.
Craig is a strong abortion rights supporter, and she went back to campaign at Carleton and St. Olaf on election day. Results showed that she won 90% of the vote in campus precincts.
"Carleton and St. Olaf students, they exceeded the turnout from 2018 here in the midterms. I think Carleton was 111% of turnout from 2018," said Craig.
It wasn't just students in Northfield that turned out to vote though. National exit polls show that it was the highest midterm youth voter turnout in 30 years, and two-thirds of those votes went to Democrats.
National exit polls show while Democrats won the 18-29 vote easily, Republicans dominated with older voters.