Short term factors are key in understanding young voters’ electoral behavior. According to the literature on this topic, structural factors have little impact on younger cohorts’ party preferences and, following Van der Brug, even the left-right dimension is losing its effect on voting among the new citizens. Furthermore, the economic crisis -especially in Europe's periphery- is feeding a growing political disenchantment amongst the younger generation and pushing them towards alternative forms of political participation. In many respects, this specific group is under under-represented in traditional surveys and it is very difficult to acquire large n individual level data. In VAA generated datasets, by contrast, this particular cohort is typically well represented. In this paper we specifically draw on VAA generated data from 2012 regional elections in the three Spanish historical regions. The datasets (n = 33.000) enable us to not only map the party preferences of these younger cohorts in the policy space but to draw tentative conclusions about the strategies and incentives that parties use to mobilise their 'youthful' supporters.
