Angry Voters, but How Many?

The New York Times May 16, 2010
Angry Voters, but How Many?
By JOHN HARWOOD

Three United States Senate primaries on Tuesday offer new signs of the election-year intentions of America’s dyspeptic voters.
A few voters, anyway.
In Kentucky, Rand Paul’s bid for the Republican nomination will again test the strength of the Tea Party right against the establishment, represented by Trey Grayson.
In Arkansas, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s attempt to oust the incumbent Democrat, Senator Blanche Lincoln, will measure the left’s resistance to compromise in the age of Obama.
In Pennsylvania, the fight by Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican turned Democrat, to hold off Representative Joe Sestak for his new party’s nomination will show whether the combination of incumbency, age and partisan inconstancy is simply too much to bear.
Yet the voters rendering those verdicts will represent only a sliver of the population.
Consider the 2010 evidence to date:
Just 17 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the Texas primary for governor, which was a much-publicized battle between the incumbent Republican, Rick Perry, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Just 22 percent showed up in Illinois for contests for governor and for the Senate seat once held by President Obama. That turnout was the lowest in two decades.
“No groundswell of voters so far,” concluded Rhodes Cook, an expert on voting patterns. Nor does history suggest that one is likely in November.
Polls show that Republicans are at least poised to erode the Democrats’ House and Senate majorities. But as with the Democrats’ midterm gains four years ago, the uprising will almost certainly be narrow and targeted — not a mass movement.

Modest Turnouts
In 2008, when Mr. Obama’s candidacy galvanized Democrats and intrigued the nation, nearly 4 in 10 Americans declined to vote. Even at peak interest, the American appetite for democratic rituals is hardly universal.
Without a presidential race to lead the ballot, the appetite is even weaker. The last time more than half of the eligible citizens voted in a midterm election was nearly three decades ago, in 1982, census figures show.
Students of modern political history point out that this is often a problem for Democrats. Their less-affluent constituency traditionally goes to the polls at lower rates.
“We usually do well when the turnout is low,” said John Morgan, a longtime Republican demographic specialist.
Comparing 2010 to one election with modest turnout in which his party captured both houses of Congress, Mr. Morgan observed, “This smells like 1946.”
Elections with low turnout can allow parties to tilt the outcome substantially through small shifts in the composition of those voting.
In the 1994 midterms, for example, overall turnout as a proportion of eligible citizens dropped slightly. But since Representative Newt Gingrich’s party was energized that year and President Bill Clinton’s was downcast, the result earned the moniker “Republican Revolution.”
“You can have a big-wave result,” Mr. Cook said, “without a big wave of voters.”

Important Blocs
Mark Gersh, who provides targeting data to Democratic candidates at the National Committee for an Effective Congress, sees several challenges for his party. One is defections to Republicans among important constituencies, including independents, suburban women and small-town voters.
Another is a wide enthusiasm deficit. In last week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 65 percent of Republicans called themselves highly interested in the campaign, compared with 46 percent of Democrats.
A third is the vulnerability of Democratic-held House seats that were won during the boom elections of 2006 and 2008, the latter with help from an exceptional Obama-driven turnout among young and black voters.
In 2008, nearly half of eligible citizens ages 18 to 24 went to the polls, the highest level since 1972, when 18-year-olds first gained the right to vote. Nearly two-thirds of eligible African-Americans voted, slightly exceeding the rate among whites.
Without Mr. Obama on the ballot, turnout among both groups will drop this year. But the fate of the Democrats’ Congressional majorities may turn on how much, which is why Democrats are spending $50 million to mobilize recently registered “surge voters.”
The party calculates that even a small return on that investment could salvage some seats now in jeopardy. “We’re talking about adding 3 or 4 percent in the toughest environment any candidate can have,” said Mitch Stewart, director of the Democratic Party network Organizing for America.
Mr. Gersh added, “If you have a 95 percent failure rate and still get 5 percent of them, that could be a big deal.”
Republicans acknowledge that Democrats may reap some residual benefit from Mr. Obama’s 2008 proficiency at finding and mobilizing new voters. But they also recall that Republicans had similar success in President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign, only to struggle with motivating supporters two years later.
“The upgrade they got to their toolbox is not to be underestimated,” said Heath Thompson, a Republican consultant. “It gives them new targets. But they still have to motivate those targets.”