Statistikhengst
Diamond Member
- Banned
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I want to make a mathematical point that has nothing to do with partisan preference.
It is often said that mid-terms are "base elections", meaning, only the base of the party comes out to vote.
And last night's primary vote in Florida proves the point very well.
First, in context, in 2012, 8,495,175 votes were cast in the presidential election, setting a Florida record for the most votes ever cast for president.
Here all of the prez voting in FL since 1856, you can see the numbers for yourself.
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/compare.php?year=2012&fips=12&f=1&off=0&elect=0&type=state
According to the FL SOS website:
Voter Turnout Statistics - Florida Division of Elections - Department of State
that represents a 72% voter turnout rate in 2012, which, interestingly enough, is lower than the 75% from 2008, but more votes than 2008, which means that Florida's population grew between 2008 and 2012 more than people realize.
Now, fast forward to 2014, the primaries:
News from The Associated Press
In the combined GOP and DEM primaries last night, 1,785,847 votes were cast. At least that is the vote count to-date.
According to FL VR statistics:
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voter-registration/statistics/pdf/2014/pri2014_CountyParty.pdf
For this election in 2014, 11,807,507 Floridians were registered to vote.
1,785,847 / 11,807,507 = 15.12% voter turnout. Now, those are just preliminary totals, they are bound to go up some. But how do they compare to the primaries in 2010 (the last mid-term)?
Voter Turnout Statistics - Florida Division of Elections - Department of State
According to the FL SOS, in 2010, VT was 22%, considerably higher than this time around.
In the 2010 mid-terms, VT was 49%. So, we see around 3/4 of the FL electorate coming out in presidential elections, and less (or half) coming out for mid-terms. Soon, we will know what the VT for the mid-term was once November 2014 comes and goes.
Florida is just one example. In pretty much every state of the Union, especially states that do VR by party affiliation, the numbers show a considerably lower turnout rate for mid-terms than for presidential elections. Why? Because the base comes out for mid-terms, which quite often favors the GOP, and a much larger electorate comes out for Presidential elections, which has now favored the Democratic Party in the NPV in 5 of the last 6 national elections, but neither is a guarantee for the future.
For this reason, we should not use primary results to predict general election outcomes, and we should not use mid-term general election outcomes to try to predict the next presidential election. There is just too much disparity in the type of electorates that show up for these two different election cycles.
And on a side-note: when you consider the money and time that goes into elections, it really is a shame that VT is often so low.
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