Los Angeles - On the bucolic campus of Occidental College on the outskirts of Los Angeles, students this week were busy with their usual important activities: studying, hanging out and spending hour after hour working the phones in support of Barack Obama.

Their mission: to call fellow students around the country and urge them to go to the polls.

It's no surprise that students at Obama's alma mater are pulling out all the stops in support their most famous alumnus.

But they are being joined by an unprecedented number of their peers around the country, who have registered in record-breaking numbers to vote and support Obama, 47. This time, say their advocates, they will put down their video games, iPods and text books long enough to actually turn out and vote for their candidate.

That spells trouble for Obama's Republican opponent, John McCain, 72. According to the most recent Washington Post poll, Obama holds a 64-33 per cent edge over McCain among 18-29 year olds, a breakdown confirmed by other surveys. Obama also enjoys the support of 73 per cent of first-time voters.

About 58 per cent of Americans under 30 years old have registered to vote, according to an October CBS News-New York Times Poll. In the 2004 presidential election, only 21 per cent of voters younger than 30 were registered to vote, according to the Centre for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

"They will vote - I can promise you that," said Heather Smith, executive director of the non-partisan Rock The Vote, which has registered more than 2.3 million young voters during this election cycle. "They will turn out in record numbers."

Obama's well-oiled, well-financed campaign machine is not leaving it to chance.

Since he began his run for the White House, Obama has built his campaign on youth-friendly social-networking methods. His army of hundreds of thousands of volunteers will be on the march Tuesday not only urging their peers to turn out but also helping handicapped and elderly voters to get to the polls.

Obama has displayed the same determination in capturing another key constituency: senior citizens. This could prove critical in helping him capture battleground states like Florida and Nevada, where older voters represent a disproportionate share of the electorate.

In August, McCain still had the upper hand with the over-65 group, with an 8-percentage-point lead, the Gallup polling organization found. These days, Gallup says Obama has closed the generation gap, and the Pew Centre even puts Obama ahead by 8 percentage points with seniors.

Part of the reason for Obama's gains among older voters is the fallout from the financial crisis, which could hit hardest among pensioners who depend on investment income. Because seniors watch more television than any other voting group, Obama's advertising advantage could be having a dramatic effect.

McCain's past support for privatizing pensions has hurt him with the older demographic group, especially after the autumn swoon on stock markets.

In Florida, comedian Sarah Silverman organized an initiative called Operation Schlep to encourage young Jewish voters to visit their grandparents and encourage them to vote for Obama.

Obama's surprise decision to halt his campaign to go visit his ailing grandmother last week in Hawaii is also likely to play well among senior voters.

His wife, Michelle, filled in for Obama on the campaign trail during his sudden trip to Hawaii. She paid tribute to the "young people sleeping on floors, traveling to other states, showing this nation they are ready to be a part of this."

"We are so proud of our young people, but we are also seeing some not-so-young folks as well," she said. "You come across somebody in their 50s, 60s or 70s who have never voted before - when you see someone in their 80s or 90s grab your arm - sometimes with tears streaming down their faces - and say 'I never thought I'd live to see the day'." (dpa)