The young and the poorer voted Yes. The post-referendum poll from Lord Ashcroft does a good summary of who voted how and why. However, the most telling distinction is the following:
Voters aged 16-17: YES: 71%; NO: 29%
Voters aged 65+: YES: 27%; NO: 73%
and,
The Sydney Morning Herald's post vote polling showed the most important statistic IMO: "More than half of No voters said fear for the future was the most important factor affecting their vote, while 80 per cent of Yes voters said they voted because they were hopeful for the future."
So 'project fear' worked, again. Many fearful and older Scots were afraid of how an independent Scotland might change their lives. The ‘No’ campaign’s slogan ‘Why take the risk?’ played a big part in fostering this view. ‘Yes’ campaigners say ‘project fear’ was a unconcealed effort by the British establishment to win at any cost.
The pollsters got it right in Scotland. Living here in Canada i've seen how wrong the pollsters can be recently. The 'gold standard' for political polling here in Canada has been telephone polls for decades, that's what pollsters are trained to do, what the media is trained to report. But the younger generations, the cell phone loving, social media addicted folks don't have home phones and the poor don't even have homes let alone phones. So, my fantasy was that the 'AYE' campaign would be underrepresented in the Scottish polling, but...
In the end i'm grateful to have had nearly a full day of mystery where the future might have changed, where a crack in the Wall St, wall may have appeared. It felt good. From the look on the faces of so many young Scots it won't be the last vote they have.
