IT’S NOT DIFFICULT TO DETECT a level of demoralization among some Democrats that can’t be explained by the loss of a single presidential election by three points. One reason may be the death, on November 2, of a myth that has long nourished the hopes of the American left–the idea that tens of millions of non-voters (if only they could be turned out) were an ace up their sleeve.
For decades, liberals and progressives pointed out that Americans vote at much lower rates than Europeans. Since non-voting is especially high among groups that normally lean to the left–minorities and those with the lowest incomes and formal education–this meant that the building blocks of a more liberal, even social democratic, politics existed in the United States. But these people (so the thinking went) were excluded from the political process by complicated registration procedures and the failure of parties and candidates to raise issues that motivated them. To many on the left, it was a reassuring image: Outside the political system, looking in, were enough potential voters to swamp conservatives (and moderates for that matter). It meant history was still on their side, since ways would surely be found sooner or later to mobilize these citizens.
Many Democrats shared this belief, which is why they joined progressives in passing the “motor voter” registration law in 1993. Many journalists were believers, too, regularly reporting that high turnout naturally favors Democrats.
But there were always two things wrong with this line of argument. It exaggerated the number of non-voters and it mischaracterized their likely political views. Because turnout ratios are typically calculated as a percentage of all adult residents of the United States, the number of non-voters misleadingly includes millions of people who are not eligible to vote because they’re not U.S. citizens or, in many states, because they are convicted felons. There have always been millions fewer non-voters out there to be mobilized than was suggested.
More important, the myth mischaracterized non-voters politically. It’s true that minorities and the very poorest Americans have historically voted at disproportionately low rates. But it doesn’t follow that the average non-voter falls to the left of the political aisle. For example, U.S. Census Bureau data suggest that non-voters who didn’t finish high school at most made up one in five non-voters in 2000. The same data suggest that up to 30 million non-voters in 2000 had either some college education, a bachelor’s degree, or an advanced degree. In other words, non-voters included many millions of middle-class Americans. In other cases, the myth-making left politically miscategorized groups that historically voted at low rates. African Americans might vote overwhelmingly Democratic. But politically sluggish young people come close to splitting evenly between Democratic- and Republican-leaning views, despite 1960s memories to the contrary. Hispanics are turning out to be much more politically diverse than some hoped (and others feared), even if we aren’t sure exactly how many voted Republican this year. Finally, the ranks of non-voters have also included millions of rural and small-town residents–many of them religious–whose incomes might connote urban poverty but whose political sympathies don’t. In sum, it isn’t obvious at all that most non-voters would be heavily inclined to support left-of-center candidates if they entered a polling place.
The 2004 election results bear this out and may lay the myth permanently to rest. The campaign caused a healthy increase in turnout, but at least as many of the new voters cast Republican ballots as Democratic ones. Nationwide, voters increased from about 105 million in 2000 to somewhere near 120 million this year. That’s a rise in turnout from about 56 percent to around 61 percent of eligible voters. In some of the battleground states, participation increases were even more impressive. In Ohio, turnout went from 57 percent in 2000 to about 66 percent this year; in Florida from about 55 percent to 66 percent; and in Minnesota from 67 percent to nearly 75 percent. (These percentages are calculated from Census Bureau population numbers for 2000 and estimates for 2003–assuming a steady percentage of each state’s non-citizens and felons over 18 since the 2000 census.)
And if we compare how many votes George W. Bush added to his 2000 totals with how many John Kerry added to Al Gore’s 2000 total, it’s clear that Bush gained heavily among these new voters, even though Kerry had the easy pickup of many former Naderites to his totals. Bush won nearly as many new votes as Kerry did in Ohio, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. And Bush won a fifth to a quarter more new votes than Kerry did in Virginia and Pennsylvania, half again more than Kerry in Florida, nearly twice as many in Missouri, and over three times as many in West Virginia. In these and many other states, it turns out that the non-voting population has contained many people who can easily vote Republican. Karl Rove famously concluded this after the 2000 election. This time around, the GOP identified millions of “lazy” Republican voters who needed to be mobilized into showing up on Election Day.
Of course, even with the increases of 2004, the ranks of non-voters still number up to 75 million. But the other lesson of the 2004 election is that it’s not clear how many more votes can practically be wrung from the eligible population. There are several reasons for the non-voting that remains, and none of them is likely to go away anytime soon. That’s true of both the reasons that liberal and progressive strategists have traditionally stressed: onerous registration procedures and election campaigns that don’t appeal to non-voters. It is difficult to imagine a future election campaign conducted with higher levels of energy and publicity than this year’s. Certainly the campaign against Bush united and motivated liberals and progressives to an unprecedented degree. Handsomely funded pro-Kerry groups like America Coming Together absorbed virtually all the costs of registering and voting in many states. They poured tens of millions of dollars into bringing forms to people’s doors, helping to fill them out and turn them in. It’s not clear that they can mobilize many more voters than they did this year in states like Ohio and Florida, though they will surely try. And where is there any other low-hanging liberal electoral fruit these days? Despite stereotypes, for example, voting rates among eligible African Americans have been steadily approaching those of whites.
Another reason for non-voting is lower turnout rates in non-battleground states. But since they won’t shift national election outcomes, these potential votes aren’t an ace up anyone’s sleeve, liberal or conservative. Finally, the remaining non-voting population includes many who are in no position to vote (remember that the adult population includes millions of people with mental disabilities) as well as people who remain–at least to political junkies of all stripes–mystifyingly disengaged from politics no matter what’s on the ballot.
We can all hope for even greater participation in 2008. But there is a good chance that highly motivated and well-funded get-out-the-vote efforts have wrung from the electorate about as many votes as they plausibly can, at least in the battleground states that decide elections. That might explain why a number of liberal commentators have been blaming Bush’s reelection not on people not showing up to the polls but on the “ignorance” and “stupidity” of the many who did turn out. A myth has just died. And some of its former adherents, at least, seem to know it.
Gerard Alexander is associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia.
