National turn-out was 36.6%, the lowest since 1940

[Lief 🗽]

Source: http://www.electproject.org/2014g (it'll probably go up a bit with ballots from California still to come in)

Turnout was less than 30% in 6 states: Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah
Turnout was more than 50% in 6 states: Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin

[Boston Bread]

50+% turnout wasn't enough to help in quite a few of those states. Probably olds voting in big numbers. Even in the highest turnout states youth turnout is probably abysmal. What are American kids learning about in civics these days?
But less than 30% is insane. Republicans couldn't have had good turnout in those states either so if even just half of non-whites in Texas voted the TXGOP might actually lose a down ballot statewide race for once.
Compulsory voting anyone?

[Grumpier Than Thou]

This is gut-wrenching.

[Boston Bread]

Junk election, indeed.

[jd1433]

It's important to at least acknowledge that midterm national turnout is often just as much a function as to how much the public perceives competitive races as anything else. Just having one more state than normal that has neither a Senate or Governor's race up in a given cycle will have a pretty large effect on the national turnout number.


Comparing competitive state turnout this year vs. historical percentages for presidency or prior competitive state races is probably a more effective metric to gauge such a thing.


Also states like Texas and California had at least mildly competitive Governor/Senate races only 2-4 decades ago. Not any more. A lot of rational people don't even bother when they already know the outcome.

[Boston Bread]

What's up with 1940 actually? It was a presidential election and at a time when the lower classes were being mobilized by FDR and the new deal. Is that just when turnout started being recorded? Or was 1940 not the election I thought it was?

[IceSpear]

Holy CRAP. What in the world could cause someone who voted in 2010 to sit out in 2014?!

[Gass3268]

Good to see the Upper Midwest to continue to have strong turnout!

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Indiana is such a disappointment of a state.

[tpfkaw]

What's up with 1940 actually? It was a presidential election and at a time when the lower classes were being mobilized by FDR and the new deal. Is that just when turnout started being recorded? Or was 1940 not the election I thought it was?

1. The South had extremely low turnout due to restrictive voting laws and being very uncompetitive. (In those days, Democratic primaries were the real elections and had higher turnout than the general).
2. Roosevelt was very unpopular due to the double-dip recession, court-packing, running for a third term, and his obvious desire to involve the US in WWII.
3. Despite that, Republicans had close to zero enthusiasm for Wendell Willkie, quite possibly the worst major-party presidential candidate of all time. (It's not really stretching the truth too far to characterize him as a Democratic plant). Also, almost all the Republican state party organizations had practically ceased to exist during the 1930-36 wipeout, and they had only just begun rebuilding party infrastructure.

[jd1433]

Holy CRAP. What in the world could cause someone who voted in 2010 to sit out in 2014?!

Simple: Your senator, governor, etc. was locked into a tough fight in 2010 and wasn't in 2014?

[IceSpear]

Holy CRAP. What in the world could cause someone who voted in 2010 to sit out in 2014?!

Simple: Your senator, governor, etc. was locked into a tough fight in 2010 and wasn't in 2014?

But what states were that the case? Very few. In 2010 for instance, Georgia wasn't competitive in any race. This time both were competitive (at least supposedly), and turnout there DROPPED.

[publicunofficial]

Holy CRAP. What in the world could cause someone who voted in 2010 to sit out in 2014?!

Simple: Your senator, governor, etc. was locked into a tough fight in 2010 and wasn't in 2014?

But what states were that the case? Very few. In 2010 for instance, Georgia wasn't competitive in any race. This time both were competitive (at least supposedly), and turnout there DROPPED.

Could the weather have something to do with it? I remember bad weather affecting Georgia in particular on election day.

[jd1433]

Holy CRAP. What in the world could cause someone who voted in 2010 to sit out in 2014?!

Simple: Your senator, governor, etc. was locked into a tough fight in 2010 and wasn't in 2014?

But what states were that the case? Very few. In 2010 for instance, Georgia wasn't competitive in any race. This time both were competitive (at least supposedly), and turnout there DROPPED.

^^As said above that is the type of info that actually means something. The national turnout numbers have to many other details that impact them in midterms for them to be as useful of data as state specific turnout comparisons.

[New_Conservative]

50+% turnout wasn't enough to help in quite a few of those states. Probably olds voting in big numbers. Even in the highest turnout states youth turnout is probably abysmal. What are American kids learning about in civics these days?
But less than 30% is insane. Republicans couldn't have had good turnout in those states either so if even just half of non-whites in Texas voted the TXGOP might actually lose a down ballot statewide race for once.
Compulsory voting anyone?

We don't take a civics class in high school in Mass., not sure about the rest of the country.

[angus]

Iowa

They ran one hell of a campaign.  Mostly negative.  I'm still getting stuff from the anti-Brayley crowd.  Just got one today.  I'd estimate that in the past two weeks I have received ten mailers.  None were in support of Ernst.  All were against Brayley.  I'm surprised that as far out as two years and four months since I moved from Iowa to Pennsylvania, I'm still receiving stuff from them.

I'm no fan of Brayley.  I didn't vote for him when he was my congressman, and always voted for whoever ran against him--Brayley is the one who sponsored Cash For Clunkers, after all, and a whole bunch of other idiotic bills.  Also, his nephew really rubbed me the wrong way the one time I had to meet him and spend about half an hour with him for reasons unrelated to politics.  Anyway, I'm sure I'd have voted for anyone who ran against him except for (maybe) Hitler or Stalin, but it seems to me that all the negative campaigning would have diminished turnout, rather than increasing it.  And I just figured that was the strategy.  Diminish it enough and the challenger wins, right?  That's the American Way.  More Dollars doesn't mean more votes for your guy, but it means less votes for the other guy.

Iowans do vote, though.  They're very square.  I never met so many farmers with PhDs as I did when I was in Iowa.  Very agro, very well educated, and very practical.  That's Iowa.  So don't read too much into the large turnout relative to other states.  What in other states might be considered a large turnout in Iowa might be small still, and if that is the case, then the negative strategy worked.

[Bigby]

I noticed that the more competitive the state was, the higher the turnout.

[Flake]

I noticed that the more competitive the state was, the higher the turnout.

That tends to be the case

[Bigby]

I noticed that the more competitive the state was, the higher the turnout.

That tends to be the case

Guess I had to be Captain Obvious. I tend to be like this when I feel sick.

[Hatman 🍁]

Jesus Christ. Our boring municipal election which was a sure thing had a higher turnout.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I doubt a Presidential election was the previous lower one.

[Knives]

God, this makes me so happy to be an Australian because the elected officials actually represent the public they stand for. I mean in Texas, Abbott won with roughly 16% of the electorate actually voting for him. The state of American politics is shameful, the apathy or even laziness needs to die.

[Marokai Backbeat]

And we claim to want to spread democracy throughout the world.

[Tender Branson]

That's even lower than in the EU elections this year (43%) ...

MN once again stands out positively, even though they didn't really have any close races like the other high-turnout-states.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I doubt a Presidential election was the previous lower one.

You would be correct to doubt it. It seems Lief misread the table - it was actually 1942.


It's not surprising to me that it was lower this year than in 2010. In 2010 you had voters who were angry and motivated, in 2014 they were more cynical. I am surprised that turnout was as low as it was though.