In my Wall Street Journal article on polling last Thursday, I made the point that one thing pollsters have trouble projecting is turnout. And the key fact about turnout in this decade is that it has been going down — despite all the talk about how vast surges of non-whites and Millennials into the electorate will produce a “death spiral” for Republicans.
Turnout in 2012 was lower than in 2008, turnout in 2014 was lower than in 2010, and in both cases turnout was down particularly among Democrats. Barack Obama received 3.5 million fewer votes in 2012 than 2008, but that was enough to win because Mitt Romney received only 1 million more than John McCain.
What will turnout be in 2016? Will Democratic turnout surge this time, unlike 2012? In recent news stories I find clues suggesting that the answer will be no.
The first comes from Politico, headlined “Poll: Republicans more optimistic about their party’s ideas.” It quotes a Gallup survey finding that 60 percent of Republican identifiers say their presidential candidates have come up with good ideas for solving their most important problem, while a significantly lower 42 percent of Democratic identifiers say their presidential candidates have.
To be sure, Republicans and Democrats have different priorities: Republican voters tend to focus on allegedly declining values and foreign policy dangers, while Democratic voters tend to focus on economic inequality and climate change. But these results suggest that the Democrats’ economic solutions — higher minimum wages, higher tax rates on high earners, mandatory paid family and sick leave, equal pay for women (which has actually been the law for more than 50 years) — fall short of addressing the economic problems they perceive. Which makes a lot of sense, when you think about it.
The other sign comes from a Wall Street Journal article, pointing out that four-fifths of the people who gave $5,000 maximum contributions to Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012 haven’t contributed to Hillary Clinton. One Obama fundraiser is quoted as saying, “Most Democrats will be behind Hillary if she’s the nominee. Once that becomes clear, the rest of that money should be easy to get.”
But it’s already clear, at least as clear as it has been in any cycle in which a president is not running for re-election, that Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee. And while it’s certainly possible that maximum contributions can be pried out of many of the currenly non-contributing four-fifths, their hesitation to part with their money suggests something in the nature of less-than-full enthusiasm for the candidate.
You can be pretty sure that these people will vote in November 2016, and that almost all will vote for Clinton. But if their apparent lack of enthusiasm for her is shared by large numbers of Democrats who, for whatever reason, don’t max out for Democratic candidates, that’s not a good sign for heavy Democratic turnout next year.
The Democratic National Committee, in the wisdom of Chairman Debbie Wasserman Shultz, has scheduled the party’s presidential debates at times where viewership is likely to be low, like the debate last Saturday night, when the Iowa Hawkeyes football game was on TV. The theory seems to have been to give Hillary Clinton’s competitors as little chance as possible to make an impression on voters.
But that also gives her less chance to make the kind of strongly positive impression that would spur enthusiasm and, ultimately, boost turnout. Democrats enjoyed terrific turnout after the spirited and high-visibilty contest for the nomination in 2008. Will they generate similar turnout with the less-spirited and lower-visibility contest they’re having for the 2016 nomination?
