More Evidence that Republicans are Now the Party that Benefits From High Voter Turnout
I have previously written about evidence indicating that, in the Trump era, Republicans are now the party that stands to benefit from relatively high voter turnout. A new New York Times/Siena study provides further confirmation:
In a reversal of one of the most familiar patterns in American politics, it appears that Donald J. Trump, not President Biden, would stand to gain if everyone in the country turned out and voted.
In New York Times/Siena College polls over the last year, Mr. Biden holds a wide lead over Mr. Trump among regular primary and midterm voters, yet he trails among the rest of the electorate, giving Mr. Trump a lead among registered voters overall….
The NYT/Siena study finds that people who voted in 2022 midterm primary elections favored Biden over Trump by a 49% to 44% margin, those who voted in 2022 general elections, but not primaries favored Biden by a slight 46-45 margin, those who voted in the 2020 election, but not midterms favored Trump 44-42; finally those who never voted before supported Trump by a large 49-35 margin.
As noted in my earlier post, the standard explanation for this shift is that the Trump-era GOP is strongest among lesser-educated voters, and they—in turn—are less likely to turn out. There is now a large “diploma gap” between Democratic and Republican voters.
The NYT analysis adds the point that high-turnout voters tend to be more supportive of abortion rights and more concerned about democracy-preservation. These are relatively strong issues for Biden. By contrast, low-frequency voters are more focused on short-term economic trends. This year, short-term economic issues are helping Trump, in part because of widespread voter ignorance about the true state of the economy and the causes of inflation (such ignorance tends to be more common among less-educated and less-engaged voters).
If the trend towards Republicans doing better among low-propensity voters continues, perhaps this will lead partisans to reconsider their traditional attitudes towards various policies intended to increase turnout, including mandatory voting. I discussed this possibility in my earlier post:
Traditionall
Article from Reason.com
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