On 2010-11-05, at 10:16 PM, Somebody Somebody wrote:
> Somebody: Both you and Alan seem to subscribe to the view that there's a vast reserve army of nonvoters silently waiting to be mobilized by a true left-wing leader. I wish that this were true, but I prefer to stick to the empirical data rather than to what's ideologically comfortable.
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> So, what's the evidence that turnout was especially low in this election? Actually, there's none. Right now estimates are of around 41% of the voting age population coming to the polls for this election. We'll see if that number holds up. If it does, it would actually be high by recent standards for a mid-term election. Indeed it would be higher than any mid-term election since 1970! That was the last mid-term election before the adoption of the 26th amendment which expanded the voting age population to include young people, who of course don't vote as much as the elders.
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> Incidentally, voter turnout in national elections has been roughly stable for 40 years. Again, I don't see much evidence of voters signalling their protest against neoliberal economics by not coming to the polls. So, let's please stop engaging in wishful thinking.
Perhaps the turnout has been stable for the electorate as a whole, but there seems to be at least some preliminary evidence that the core Democratic constituencies voted in significantly fewer numbers in the latest election, and that the independents who voted for Obama in 2010 switched back to the Republicans en masse. As the 2008 vote for Obama was widely seen as a referendum on Bush administration policies, it seems reasonable to assume the rout of the Democrats had something to do with the perception that the Obama administration did not much represent the hoped for departure from those policies, and that the highly-publicized runup in public spending did much, if at all, affect their personal circumstances.
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Exit Poll: Lower Turnout Among Youth and Black Voters CBSNews November 2, 2010
Based on CBS News' preliminary national exit polling, Republicans are poised for significant gains in Congress. The youth vote--18-to-29-year-olds--who helped catapult President Obama into office makes up an estimated 9 percent of voters this year, compared to 18 percent in 2008. About 58 percent of the youth vote favors Democratic candidates.
Independents make up an estimated 28 percent of voters in the early exit polls, with 39 percent voting Democratic and 56 percent Republican.
Black voter turnout also appears to be lower during the midterm election. An estimated 10 percent of blacks are voting, compared to 13 percent in 2008. The exit polling found 8 percent of voters are Hispanic, with 66 percent voting Democratic.
In addition, men are voting more Republican, 55 percent compared to 43 for the Democrats. Among women, Democrats have a one point edge, 49% are voting for Democrats and 48% for Republicans. In 2008, more women voted Democratic. In 2002, women voted 49 percent Republican and 49 percent Democratic.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20021551-503544.html