Primary Voter Turnout Stays Low, but More So for Democrats

[mucifer]

This is BAD news:

By BRIAN J. MCCABE

For the first time since the 1930s, participation in Republican primaries exceeds participation in Democratic primaries, according to a report by the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

The study, which looked at elections held through Sept. 1 of this year, found that more than four million more voters cast ballots in Republican primaries than in Democratic primaries. While it is unclear whether higher levels of Republican primary participation spell doom for the Democrats in November, a closer look at the data shows reasons for leaders of both parties to be concerned — the number of nonvoters continues to outpace voters. In a primary season where the narrative tends to be about partisanship and anger, the statistics through the end of the summer suggest that voter participation remained relatively consistent with the last couple off-year election cycles.

According to the study, voter turnout rebounded slightly from the 2006 primary season (which, with slightly less than 17 percent of the voting age population voting, holds the record for the lowest turnout for a midterm election on record). It is consistent with turnout from the 1998 and 2002 primaries, in which slightly less than 19 percent of the population voted. Compared to 1994, participation in the 2010 primary runs about two percentage points lower.

more at http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/primary-voter-turnout-stays-low-but-more-so-for-democrats/?hp

[gateley]

1. This breaks my heart. nt

[still_one]

2. The primaries do not necessarily translate to the November turnout /nt

[AnnieBW]

3. Lack of competitive races?

I don't know what turnout was in my area, but we have at least one competitive race here in Prince Georges County, MD. O'Malley, Mikulski, and the Reps are all being primaried by no-names. Yawn. Nobody is going to come out to vote if the incumbents are running unopposed or against no-names. Wait until November.

[elocs]

4. Here in WI Feingold is running unopposed in the primary as is my congressman, Ron Kind.

Not any compelling reasons for Democrats to turn out to vote here.

[Radical Activist]

5. That's fine.

Republicans have had more competitive primaries. The teabaggers may be a majority of the Republican primary but they aren't a majority of the public.

[scheming daemons]

6. Repeat after me: Primary elections have no bearing on general election results in any way