Voter turnout in last week’s primary was up up three points from the 2014 midterms, but still below 20%.
According to WHYY only 18% of voters came out to the polls last Tuesday.
The partisan breakdown of turnout saw a larger number of Democratic voters than Republican voters go to the polls by approximately 100,000 voters. In terms of percentage of voters though a larger percent of Republicans voted, 22% compared to 19%.
The Director of the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College Andrew Busch warns that primary turnout is not a good predictor of general election turnout.
“[It’s] influenced by a wide range of things, including who does or does not have competitive races, how many candidates are running, and even weather in different parts of the state — as well as general levels of enthusiasm that can change over the next six months,” McKenna told WHYY.
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5 Responses
Democratic enthusiasm has absolutely plummeted in recent months. The “Resistance” was a flash in the pan. Just like your high school girlfriend, the brightest flame burns the fastest. The election of Democratic Socialist candidates will certainly hurt in November when Republicans are able to own 65% of the political spectrum. When it comes down to it, Americans vote with their wallet. They don’t want to be taxed to death. Until the Democratic party realizes that, they will continue to lose ground in what once looked like a solid blue trending state.
The Dem’s didn’t have a contested race at the top of the ticket, so Wolf and Casey didn’t do any GOTV effort. So, the turnout numbers aren’t representative of November, when the whole ticket is contested (and Wolf and Casey are spending millions per week in October).
Also, the turnout was almost 25% for the GOP and almost 21% for the Dem.
WHYY (like most others) uses the WRONG denominator and includes the “InActive” voters (which should be, but haven’t yet been dropped from the voter file).
The correct denominator for Dem registration is 3.6 million, not 4 million.
No way Ds can win back the House if this is any predictor of fall turnout.
Where’s this highly touted “Blue Wave” I’ve been reading so much about in the Philadelphia Inquirer and watching on CNN and MSNBC. So far it looks more like a Blue Ripple.
Russian voters stayed home this cycle. Sad.