Remember all the speculation that younger voters wouldn't turn out to support Hillary Clinton in this year's presidential election?
Wrong, according to the latest, large-scale survey of young voters by Harvard's Institute of Politics. The survey contradicts a lot of anecdotes that have provided the basis for campaign stories this fall.
Just under half of 18- to 29-year-olds, 49%, said they would "definitely" vote this year -- almost identical to the 48% at this point in 2012, the poll found. Clinton's share of the vote was somewhat higher than Obama's was four years ago.
The poll showed Clinton getting 49% of the vote of people aged 18-29, with Trump taking just 21%.
Young women, who many analysts said were not excited by Clinton's candidacy, were more likely to say they would definitely vote than their counterparts in the last election. Clinton has gained an even larger advantage among them than Obama had in his reelection.
By contrast, young men seem slightly less likely to vote than in 2012. So do young Republicans, who were noticeably less likely than young Democrats.to say they would definitely vote this time around. Young Republicans were also less likely to back Donald Trump than their counterparts four years ago were to support Mitt Romney.
More than 7 in 10 Clinton supporters said they were "enthusiastic" about her candidacy -- besting the 65% of Trump supporters who expressed enthusiasm for their candidate.
Another oft-repeated piece of conventional wisdom was that Clinton would not do well among young, minority voters. The poll challenged that notion, too.
Young Latinos appear more likely to vote than four years ago, although Clinton may be running behind Obama's level among them. The margin of error for that subgroup is large, so the verdict on both points is a bit cloudy.
Among young black voters, her margin -- an 85-percentage-point lead over Trump -- is identical to Obama's four years ago, and the share who said they definitely would vote was almost identical to 2012.
Almost three-quarters of young Latinos, 72%, and 85% of young African Americans said they believed that people of their race or ethnicity were "under attack" in the U.S. today.
Overall, more than 6 in 10 young Americans polled said that race relations would worsen if Trump were elected president. If Clinton is elected, 36% said they expected race relations to stay about the same, while 23% predicted they would improve and 22% said they would worsen.
About 1 in 5 young voters said they planned to vote for a third-party candidate, with 14% saying they would vote for the Libertarian, Gary Johnson, while 5% backed Jill Stein of the Green Party. But 37% of the potential Johnson voters said they were likely to change their minds, something that almost none of the Clinton or Trump voters said.
The poll was conducted Oct. 7 to 17 -- covering the period from just before the second presidential debate until just before the final one. In the average of national surveys, Clinton's lead has been stable since then. The poll surveyed 2,150 Americans aged 18 to 29 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points in either direction.