-Not at all. Turnout matches 1980, lower than 1992.
Doug-- You are being inaccurate or at least confusing turnout based on "voting age population" versus "voting eligible population." Because of more immigrants and more felon disenfranchisement, there is a smaller pool of voters in the voting age population. One myth is that voting turnout has declined over the years, which it never has. 18-21 year olds were allowed to vote which depressed the stats on turnout from 1972 on, but when you look at percentage of those eligible to vote, the numbers have been roughly consistent between 55-60% of eligible voters.
The turnout in 1980 was only 54.7%, while in 2004 turnout was 56.8% 1992 was the highest turnout year since college age folks were allowed to vote, with 60.6% of the vote, although the Perot factor no doubt had an effect. I'd be the first to agree with some folks that viable third party runs increase turnout, but those happen overwhelming not on the left but in the center in the US, and even Anderson's run in 1980 did not drive up turnout that much.
But while overall turnout is nice, the real question is what chunk of that turnout Democrats are able to mobilize. And Kerry did very well by that standard, taking nearly 27.1% of the eligible voters. Here is a chart of the Democratic share of eligible voters since 1972. Only Carter's victory in 1976 was higher. (BTW the highwater mark in recent decades was LBJ who, with no youth vote depressing turnout and a landslide, received 38% of eligible voters)
McGovern 0.2090 Carter 1976 0.2749 Carter 1980 0.2243 Mondale 0.2319 Dukakis 1988 0.2474 Clinton 1992 0.2607 Clinton 1996 0.2595 Gore 2000 0.2615 Kerry 2004 0.2713
Nathan