A new post by UMBC political science professor Thomas F. Schaller on Sabato’s Crystal Ball discusses the concept of election “drop-off” and why he expects it to benefit the Republican Party in the 2014 election.
Schaller explains, “‘Drop-off’ is the political science term for the decline in turnout between the high-water benchmark of presidential elections and other electoral moments” such as “midterm elections for both chambers of Congress” and “state and local elections…held in non-presidential years.” Between 1964 and 2010, the average drop-off effect was 14%, with election turnouts ranging from 54.2% to 69.3% in presidential cycles and from 41.8% to 55.4% in midterm cycles.
What effect does this have? Schaller writes, “It’s no mystery why Democrats generally perform better in presidential years while Republicans tend to excel in midterm cycles: Lower midterm turnouts tend to skew the electorate toward older, white and/or more affluent voters.” He concludes, “Democrats will need to employ new strategies to compel voters who disappear when the presidency isn’t on the ballot to show up.”
For discussion on this topic, see also Charlie Mahtesian’s Politico blog, which excerpted and linked to the piece.
Tags: CAHSS, PoliticalScience
