As to turnout, my prediction is that it is going to be higher by 8% than last time.
The common view among the pundits is, that a high turnout works in favor of the Dems.
We'll se.
It's hard to see where there would be such a large jump. One of the experts in voter turnout is Prof. Michael McDonald at GMU. He has a
website with a wealth of analysis. One important technique he uses is to measure a turnout rate by subtracting the iinelgible non-citizens and felons from the voting age population, and also subtracting the overseas vote from the total. For the last few elections this reconciled turnout rate is:
1948 - 52.1%
1952 - 62.2%
1956 - 60.0%
1960 - 63.6%
1964 - 62.6%
1968 - 61.4%
1972 - 56.1%
1976 - 54.7%
1980 - 54.6%
1984 - 57.0%
1988 - 53.9%
1992 - 60.2%
1996 - 52.2%
2000 - 55.2%
From this you can see that since 1972 after the voting age was lowered to 18, the turnout exceeded 60% only once, and that was in a three-way race that brought out new voters. A 5% increase would be consistent with that recent record, and more likely it will stay within 1-2% of the turnout from 2000.
