President Barack Obama announced last Monday that he will be seeking a second term in 2012.

Though his approval rating among all voters is around 47 percent, a recent Harvard report recently shows that 60 percent of voters ages 18-24 strongly approve of Obama

Dr. Alex Aguado, UNA associate professor of history and political science, said that Obama’s approval rating is likely different among young voters because Obama aggressively campaigned toward this age group in the 2008 election.

“The Obama campaign in 2008 tried to mobilize young people by utilizing new technology, like Facebook and Twitter,” Aguado said. He said that using this technology helped young voters keep in touch with the campaign.

“The problem with [aggressively campaigning toward young voters], though, is getting them to actually vote,” Aguado said.

Young people ages 18-29 only made up 18 percent of voters in the 2008 election.

According to The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, college-aged voters tend to vote more for democrats than republicans, and this age group is more concerned with the economy and healthcare than with the war in Afghanistan and illegal immigration.

“I definitely vote for candidates based on their stance on domestic policy,” said Julian Threet, a junior majoring in Public Communications.

He said that Obama appealed to him as a young voter in 2008 because of his focus on domestic policy in areas like the economy and healthcare.

Since 2008, Threet said that his faith in Obama has decreased, but he believes he will still vote for Obama in 2012.

“If [Obama] can straighten out the budget situation, I will definitely vote for him,” Threet said.

Matt Daniels, a junior majoring in sports management, said that many young voters probably approve of Obama because they are not informed.

“[Students] think that just because the war isn’t all over the news, the president must be doing a good job,” Daniels said. He believes that many young voters don’t pay attention to the news and current events, so when election time comes around, they are easily influenced by campaign promises and speeches.

According to Gallup statistics, no president in the last 100 years has been elected with an approval rating below 49 percent. Aguado said that Obama’s approval rating is not the best indicator to predict the outcome of the 2012 election.

“Factors like unemployment rates and the stock market are much better ways to predict who will win an election,” Aguado said.