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Could Republican and Democratic turnout be even this year?

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For the past few weeks, conservatives have been contending that polls giving Obama a substantial margin have done so largely by oversampling Democrats.  The most recent CNN poll, for example, favored Democrats by 8 points.  In 2008, a year very favorable to the president’s party. Democratic was only 7 points higher than Republican turnout.

This year, most serious pollsters forecast a much narrower Democratic margin.  Scott Rasmussen thinks Democrats will likely have a 2-4 point advantage this November.  I tend to think it will be loser to 2 points, but sometimes I wonder if Republicans will run even with Democrats, each party’s partisans making up a near identical portion of the electorate.

The last time this happened in a presidential race was 2004 when “Republicans managed to turn out their base at ‘supercharged’ levels.”  Republicans weren’t the only ones eager to vote that year.  Democrats were eager to evict George W. Bush from the White House.

Family members reported high school friends returning to Cincinnati to canvass for John Kerry.  Democrats were motivated to vote and doing what they could to get their vote out.  They were not depressed or otherwise, dispirited.  They wanted to win; they thought they could win.

Given that in 2004, when both parties were motivated, turnout was even, I wonder sometimes if we could see a similar pattern this year.

Let me submit a few facts for your candid consideration:

Now, the Democrats also have a good ground game.  There are many people eager to vote for Barack Obama.  They should be able to get their base out.

That said, we do seem to have the ingredients in place for a “supercharged” Republican turnout again this year.  I’m not saying Republican turnout is going to be even with Democratic turnout, but am suggesting that it is within the realm of possibility.

Comments

  1. Aww, its cute that you call your yard sign and bumper sticker comment a ‘fact.’
    Reminds me of a Lionel Hutz line from the Simpsons:
    “Well, Your Honor. We’ve plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence.”

  2. Turnout is a funny thing. In 2008, it was at a 40-year high… but even that was only 57%. The marginal voter is, almost by definition, not good at getting to the polling place and not likely to do it in every election; not unless they feel a very good reason – in addition to being nagged/supported a lot, by one of the campaigns.

    I agree, it is very unlikely (approaching fantasy) that Obama turnout will equal His 2008 levels. Much less exceed it, as the polls assume. Which means the polls are wrong.

  3. [Democrats] should be able to get their base out

    I don’t take that for granted. Take blacks. Traditionally 11% or so of the electorate, in 2008 they were more like 14%. Given Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage which is unpopular in many black churches, I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least a few black voters staying home, resulting in some drift back to the historical norm (like 13% or 12%, say). Likewise with white Catholic Democrats.

  4. I’ve felt {and said} that this would be huge – turnout, upset, the whole nine yards – from before the 2010 elections. I speak for myself here, as someone who followed politics, mostly local, from duty station to duty station until 1993.

    I never voted though – never felt I knew enough. In 2010, I did vote.

    The main thing I learned in the USN was how *not* to do things by watching others – it would invariably lead me to how to do things correctly.

    Seeing Pres. Obama’s actions {his words are always 180% out} have shown me that Romney gets it too. Mostly. Ryan totally does.

    I think people see the disparity between rhetoric and reality, and realize this truly matters, and as you note, the D’s are {mostly} just as enamored with that rhetoric as they were in 2004, and don’t see the reality. This election will go down as reality trumping fantasy, as the adults are given the reins. I just updated my registration from Independent to Republican, since I found out I get cut out of the earlier elections – at 51, I’m finally an adult!

  5. The one cataclysmic flaw in all of this logic about Dem/Repub turnout is the fundamental presumption that registered Dems turning out will vote for Obama. The Dem turnout could be +1,or even +3, but if those Dems vote for Romney or at least refuse to vote for Obama it destroys the polls’ premise.

    Take Pennsylvania, as an example. In the April, 2012 Democrat primary some counties had as high as a 40% undervote (refused to mark Obama on the ballot) event though Obama was the only Dem candidate for president on the ballot. Based upon the 2008 PA vote, this would have meant a loss of ~513,000 Obama votes. Does anyone really believe that union blue Democrat coal miners will be casting their votes en masse for Obama? And they are but one single example. Now multiply that by other demographics (Catholics? Small business owners?) and expand that nationwide . . . .

  6. I guess you’re just going to make 2 posts that say effectively the same thing?

    For the past few weeks, conservatives have been contending that polls giving Obama a substantial margin have done so largely by oversampling Democrats. The most recent CNN poll, for example, favored Democrats by 8 points. In 2008, a year very favorable to the president’s party. Democratic was only 7 points higher than Republican turnout.

    Conservatives have been wrong. Pollsters don’t just decide they’re going to call a higher percentage of Democrats, they call people at random and ask what party they’re affiliated with. They make adjustments based on demographic information, but the party affiliation stuff is self-reported. The pollsters can’t help that more people are identifying as Democrats.

    http://pollingmatters.gallup.com/2012/09/the-recurring-and-misleading-focus-on.html

    If there was a big conspiracy among all the polling companies, including Fox News, what good would that do them other than to undermine their credibility? If part of the conspiracy was to demotivate conservatives, why wouldn’t the polling companies have Obama ahead by double digits? Why wouldn’t they report that states like Missouri and North Carolina are in play for Obama?

    I know that you guys think Obama is terrible and that nobody should be voting for him, but the polls are not wrong. Romney’s favorability ratings are the worst of any Presidential candidate in decades, don’t you think it just might be possible that the problem with Romney’s numbers is Romney?

  7. If there was a big conspiracy among all the polling companies, including Fox News, what good would that do them other than to undermine their credibility?

    Even YOU can’t be that stupid, Levi. The “good” it does them to keep repeating that the race is over–all the polls say so!–is to discourage conservatives from voting, much like the stunt the media pulled in 2000 with phony exit-polling that suggested Al Gore had won, thereby suppressing the Republican vote in several Florida districts.

    I’m sure as a good “progressive,” with the devious, dishonest mindset you folks on the left share, you can understand that. Or did you not get your talking points fax yet today?

  9. Levi,

    There are 3 levels of bias in the polls 1) sub-conscious bias; 2) conscious bias and 3) outright fraud. The last category is exemplified by the PPP poll which favored Todd Akin with a Republican sample of +9 —- in what universe?. The second category would be the use of a 2008 election model as a conscious choice for a poll ( an admitted bias toward 2008 rathern than a bias toward 2010). The first category is most readily evinced by the Dan Rather airing falsified memos regarding George W. Bush. Rather’s supporters defend him by saying he believed the information was accurate, but in fact, he ignored obvious evidence which should have called these memos into question. There were no carbon-ribbon typewriters capable of typing a superscript “th” which was all over the the faked Bush correspondence; Rather knew this because he grew up as a journalist typing on machine after machine that did not have a superscript “th” key. Rather apparently so hated Bush that he ran with the “incriminating” evidence. IMO, it wasn’t that he knew the memos were false. IMO his hatred of Bush so outweighed his logic that he never even noticed the inconsistency. Sub-conscious bias.

    Pollsters can do the same thing. Run with a model that they believe to be accurate (conscious bias) while ignoring perhaps obvious evidence on the ground which contradicts the model (sub-conscious bias) just as Dan Rather did. Check out Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Quinnipiac; they admitted using a D+8 weighting and then they admitted never expecting to see a D+8 turnout in 2012.

    Ultimately this is all speculation until November 7th when results are known. then, we’ll see precisely whose prediction was closer to reality.

  10. It might be reasonable to average the 2008 and 2010 turnout models, as a basis for 2012 polls. Not that it would be perfect; just that it would be more reasonable than what they’ve been using, “2008 plus extra Democrats in the battleground states so the results will be inflated for Obama and hopefully depress conservatives.”

  11. Ilovecapitalism,

    I believe that is precisely what Rasmussen is doing and he shows a tight race, not an Obama blowout.

    Also see this:

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/10/a-pollster-under-oath-137100.html

    a money quote: “Hickman admitted that in the final weeks of Edwards’s 2008 bid, Hickman cherry-picked public polls to make the candidate seem viable, promoted surveys that Hickman considered unreliable, and sent e-mails to campaign aides, Edwards supporters and reporters which argued that the former senator was still in the hunt —even though Hickman had already told Edwards privately that he had no real chance of winning the Democratic nomination.”

    So NOW let’s re-ask Levi’s rhetorical question: “If there was a big conspiracy among all the polling companies, including Fox News, what good would that do them other than to undermine their credibility?”

  13. A couple of minor points: 1) only 9% of respondents are bothering to answer polsters questions; 2) a couple of polls I’ve seen indicate that O’Bama will lose Dem voters i.e., a D+9 poll had Romney up by one, a D+21 poll only had O’Bama up by eleven. I’m guessing O’Bama will lose at least 5% of the Dem vote to Romney they won’t stay home and they will vote against him.

  14. Just for fun, I’ll toss this into the mix: on the rare occasion I have been polled I LIED MY FACE OFF…and it seems to me that I heard a report during the 2008 election “exit polling,” that a lot of people DELIBERATELY LIED to pollsters. Just anecdotal stuff, of course, but it IS fun to think there’s a lot of conservatives out there screwing with the pollsters.

  16. Catseye,

    If you are correct (and I believe that you are), then the 47% who were wise to Obama’s bill-of-goods in 2008 plus the 5% of disaffected Dems who are wise to Obama’s bill-of-goods now = 52%.

    Coincidentally, this agrees with the Univ of Colo study which has Romney winning 52.7% of the popular votes and 320 electoral votes.

    Don’t ya just love it when a plan comes together?

  17. T

    Yep I think this race is over at this point and all that’s left is putting down the wounded. The only real question is how big the coming Nightmare is going to be for the Dems.

  19. Before. The shoes are just beginning to drop. I think it was Ace who said Romney only has to run against O’Bama but O’Bama has to run against the economy, the debt, The Middle East, and the possible Naval war between Japan and China. I’ll add but also all of the stupid stuff he’s ever said and may be on tape somewhere that someone may have stashed away somewhere for just such and occasion.