Voter Turnout Remains Low Despite Ad Barrage, Close Race
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Overall voter turnout for this week's election barely budged despite nearly $1 billion of campaign television advertisements and the closest presidential contest in decades, making small but well-organized groups of special-interest voters more powerful than ever.
About 50.7% of the nation's 200 million eligible voters cast ballots this week, marginally greater than the rock-bottom level seen in 1996, but significantly lower than the 1992 level, said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. Four years ago, only 49% of those qualified to vote actually did so, the lowest turnout since 1924. By contrast, some 55% of the electorate went to the polls in 1992's close race between Bill Clinton and President George H.W. Bush.
Mobilization Rewarded
Mr. Gans said this year's small increase in overall turnout was largely the result of well-funded, grass-roots mobilization efforts. The work paid off in battleground states such as Illinois, where get-out-the-vote efforts by organized labor and minority groups and frequent visits by Vice President Al Gore and his GOP rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, helped pushturnout higher.
"In most battleground states, turnout went up," he said. "But turnout in nonbattleground states, which saw far less mobilization efforts, went down even with the race so close as it went down to the wire."
With overall turnout remaining roughly even, smaller groups of well-organized voters became even more important to each candidate's chances of winning the final dash to the White House. Indeed, Mr. Gore remains within striking distance of the presidency almost entirely because of larger-than-expected turnout by minority and union voters across the country.
A Major Factor
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which traditionally has remained neutral in presidential elections, spent nearly $9 million on issue ads and door-to-door campaigning designed to increase turnout among blacks. African-American voters, who never seemed to back Mr. Gore as enthusiastically as they did President Clinton, nevertheless matched their turnout for the 1996 elections. In some regions, including the South, Mr. Gore even managed to outdraw Mr. Clinton among blacks.
Blacks accounted for about 10% of the vote in several battleground states, equal to 1996 levels, the NAACP said. But the numbers were significantly higher in some crucial regions this time around.
In Florida -- where the final tally remains unresolved -- blacks accounted for 16% of the vote, up from 10% in 1996. In Missouri, they accounted for 12%, up from 5% in 1996. And in Arkansas, blacks made up 12%, compared with 9% in 1996.
Unions Set Record
Union support was even more important to Mr. Gore's chances. The AFL-CIO put its considerable organizational and financial muscle behind the vice president early on, and thousands of union volunteers went door-to-door and manned phone banks to persuade union members to head to the polls. The efforts paid off: Union voters accounted for a record 26% of the ballots cast this year, an increase from 23% in 1996 and 19% in 1992, and most voted for Mr. Gore.
The impact of organized labor's staunch support for Mr. Gore was on full display in the closely contested states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, whose popular Republican governors had tried to deliver the states to Mr. Bush. In Michigan, where union members made up a whopping 43% of the vote, Mr. Gore's 26-point victory among union voters offset Mr. Bush's 14-point advantage among nonunion voters. In Pennsylvania, where union voters made up about 30% of the total, Mr. Gore's 33-point victory among union voters offset a 10-point loss among nonunion voters.
"The fact that overall turnout didn't mushroom certainly helps us because it gives us a bigger piece of the pie," said Steve Rosenthal, the AFL-CIO's political director.
Mailing It In
However, strong union and minority turnout wasn't the only thing pushing turnout higher in certain states.
In Oregon, whose citizens voted by mail, some 72% of the state's registered voters cast ballots, though state officials expected that number to rise in coming days as large numbers of uncounted ballots are tallied. In 1996, the state's turnout was 71.3%.
And in Missouri, site of an unusual Senate battle between incumbent Republican John Ashcroft and the late Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan, turnout rose to 64.2%, from 54.2% in 1996 and 61.2% in 1992. So many voters flocked to polling stations in traditionally Democratic St. Louis that a state judge agreed to keep the polls open past their scheduled 7 p.m. close. But that ruling was overruled by an appellate court, and the polls closed at 8 p.m. Mr. Carnahan, who was killed in a plane crash last month, won the contest. His widow, Jean Carnahan, is expected to be appointed to serve his Senate term.