Colorado's younger voters, living up to pre-election hype, turned out in what appear to be record numbers for this year's presidential contest, new statistics show.

The results indicate a new level of activism by a Democratic-leaning age group and a reshuffling of how political campaigns communicate with voters, election analysts said. Yet leaders from both parties say they must work even harder to ensure the key demographic group returns to the polls in two years.

According to unofficial numbers from the Colorado secretary of state's office, 464,069 voters age 30 and under came out for this election - 61 percent of the registered total for the age group. Making up 19.2 percent of the overall electorate in Colorado, young voters were a bigger portion of the final count than residents 65 and older, who comprised 16.5 percent of the turnout, figures show.

Nationally, nearly 53 percent of voters under age 30 cast ballots and 66 percent of those backed President-elect Barack Obama, said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. That unofficial turnout figure surpasses every year since 1972, when 18- to 20-year-olds first were allowed to vote.

"The youth vote had a huge impact," said Crisanta Duran, president of the Colorado Young Democrats. "I think on so many levels, young people now feel they have a stake in what happened . . . The whole idea is that you can change your country yourself and you don't have to wait for somebody else to do it."

The 30-and-under age group traditionally has been the one most likely to stay home on Election Day. But feeding off of what analysts saw as a discontent with the direction of the country and a pull particularly toward the younger, charismatic Obama, the group stormed caucuses and polls this year.

Exit polls showed that under-30 voters made up 18 percent of the electorate, a percentage point more than in 2004. The increase in youth votes accounted for at least 60 percent of the overall increase in the number of votes in the 2008 election, Levine said.

Nationally, the 66 percent of under-30 voters who favored Obama over Republican John McCain was 13 percentage points higher than the support the Illinois senator received from the general population as a whole, Levine said. The biggest gap between the youth vote and the overall vote before this year was 2004, when that age group backed Democratic nominee John Kerry at a rate 6 percentage points higher than the population as a whole.

While understandably unhappy with the Nov. 4 results, Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams said he's far from ready to believe the party can't turn things around in the future - even in two years. Without an unpopular Republican president or the Wall Street crash looming so recently, the GOP will be on a more level playing field with young voters in 2010, he predicted.

Democratic leaders also are taking nothing for granted in 2010, a non-presidential election, which attracts far fewer voters.

Kevin Neimond, president of the Denver Young Democrats, said his group is conducting forums on issues like health care and transportation and trying to get the newly energized young electorate out for social activities. But the crowds of 150 or 200 people that came to events during the campaign are down to 15 or 20, he said.

There is the rub of the election: Young voters have opened eyes in the political world and presented themselves as a group to be courted as seriously as the long-coveted elderly vote. But for how long?

"Nobody's going to overlook young voters anymore," pollster Lori Weigel said. "That being said, if they don't show up in 2010, then that's going to be a different story."

The number uncounted

So, how did under-30 Coloradans cast their ballots? Unfortunately, that remains the one unanswered question involving the age group.

Exit polls performed by CNN and the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement did not capture a large enough crowd in the Centennial State to be considered statistically valid. And while the secretary of state's office can report how many members of that age group voted, it does not record exactly how they voted.

There seems to be universal agreement, however, that younger Coloradans went heavily for President-elect Barack Obama. Only very conservative states such as Alaska, Arkansas and Utah went red with the young crowd, and even Deep South states like Alabama and South Carolina backed the Democrat, said Peter Levine, CIRCLE director.