Students who say they’ll vote falls from 70% in 2008 to 35% this year

But generally, the ranks have thinned for college Democrats, many of whom said in interviews that they’ve been getting about half as many like-minded students to their meetings and campaign trips as they did in 2008.

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Whereas 70 percent of students said they “definitely” planned to vote in 2008, only 35 percent said they’ll do so this year, according to a new Harvard Institute of Politics poll. And even in 2008 there was a fairly large discrepancy between those who said they were going to vote and those who actually did — about 51 percent.

Other polls suggest Obama’s star power has simply diminished among students. What was a 60 percent approval rating in May 2009 is now 44 percent, according to an Associated Press-mtvU survey from late September.

Young people also are marching to the right, identifying with Democrats at just a 9-point margin over Republicans, a Rock the Vote poll from late August reported. In 2008, that margin was twice as big.

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