Think young people are apathetic about voting? Think again.

Fired up about President Bush, the Iraq war and environmentalism, about 10 million young people voted in Tuesday's midterm election (see "It's Official: Democrats Take Over Both Houses Of Congress"). That's the highest turnout for voters under age 30 in a midterm election in at least 20 years.

Twenty-four percent of Americans in that age bracket voted in this year's midterm election. According to various estimates, 20 to 22 percent of young Americans voted in the 2002 midterm, marking a 2 to 4 percent increase in 2006.

In Montana and Missouri — two states with key Senate races that helped determine the makeup of Congress — more young people voted than the national average, pollsters believe.

"This was a close election, and all the polling that I've seen, young people were ready for change, ready to do something to change Congress," said Mark Lopez, research director at Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which is based at the University of Maryland.

According to a poll by Harvard University's Institute of Politics, 60 percent of young Americans age 18 to 24 believed the country was on the "wrong track" before the election and 46 percent favored a total troop withdrawal from Iraq, either immediately (16 percent) or within a year (30 percent). The study had also found that 32 percent of those surveyed had "definitely" planned on voting in the election.

Environmentalism and the rising cost of college also likely played a role, giving a boost to Democrats. According to Rock the Vote, young voters favored Democrats by a 22-point margin, three times the margin that voted Democrat in other age groups. That study corroborated the notion that young voters played a key role in determining the makeup of Congress, with 18-to-29-year-olds favoring Democrats in Virginia, which also had a crucial Senate race.

"Whether you want young people to stand out as completely different from older voters, they still seem to have the same issues," such as the economy, crime and health care, according to Adelaide Kimball, senior advisor for Project Vote Smart. "And those issues are what turned people out and particularly young people. I don't think any of the candidates necessarily addressed those issues in their campaigning ... but people felt so strongly that they wanted to be heard and they turned out."

Lopez, whose organization is found online at CivicYouth.org, also cited a tremendous on-the-ground effort to get young people out this year. And organizations such as MoveOn made their largest midterm effort to date.

"I think what you might see is that this is the beginning of a higher level of interest among young people in politics," Lopez said. "You got two years in a row that this has happened now. My guess is that this will happen again in 2008, now that we know what works."

It's uncertain whether Tuesday's election set a record, as youth turnout has been measured differently over the years. In the 1982 midterm election, for instance, 27 percent of young Americans voted — but that was among voters ages 18 to 24 rather than under 30.