Does low voter turnout actually benefit republicans more than democrats

Politics & Elections
1

The common argument is that low voter turnout benefits republicans more than democrats.

This seems to be based on the argument that millennials, the poor, the disabled and non-whites lean democratic, but also have lower turnout and will avoid voting if you put up even mild roadblocks.

This may be true. But at the same time men have lower voter turnout than women, and voter turnout is correlated to education.

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Seeing how women lean democratic, and education is connected to party (its a U shaped curve), doesn’t that mean lower voter turnout also benefits the democrats?

As far as education, people who have less than a high school education lean dem (from what I remember). High school educated lean republican, but then college and advanced degree lean democratic again. So its a U shaped curve between party ID and education. People with high (bachelors or graduate) or low levels (high school dropout) of education lean dem and people in the middle (high school or some college) lean republican.

Among whites, high school educated whites support the GOP about 30-40 points more than college educated whites. College educated whites supported Trump by 3 points, high school educated whites supported him by 39 points or so.

So is it really as simple as ‘higher turnout benefits the democrats’ as the common knowledge says? It would seem to me that higher turnout would mean a lot of high school educated white men show up at the polls, and they go GOP 3-1 now.

2

It’s not so much that low voter turnout causes a benefit to republicans. It’s more that issues that effect turn out (I’m thinking of three, and two have changed recently)

  1. Off years (non presidential) are less exciting and have less turnout). This is more of an age thing and a conservative thing (relatively - all groups are depressed).
  2. it used to be (and I think in some cases they did this on purpose in off years). That there was a bunch of social wedge issues on the ballot. Gay marriage and the like. Preachers and talk radio would rile people up and use the hate to drive people to the polls. That has died down some what.
  3. The white college/ non college is a recent thing.
3

I thought was fairly universally accepted that retirement age folks vote more reliably (since they have nothing better to do I guess), and that they tend to skew more conservative.

4

But which way will they skew if the GOP goes ahead with cutting their Social Security and Medicare?

5

they’ll find a way to blame Obama.

6

Wesley Clark,

Trump took the majority of votes from white college-educated individuals and also whom the white women vote.

As for low voter turnout, it won’t matter much in some states, say like California or Utah.

It matters most in a swing state, where specific groups tend to vote certain ways.

7

It seems to me that a lot of folks point to 2010 and 2014 to suggest that even-but-non-presidential years (Winter Olympics years?) lean more Republican, but 2006 went the other way. As an alternate hypothesis, I’d suggest these basic rules:

  1. Anger gets people to the polls more than hope or satisfaction
  2. The out-of-power side tends to be angrier
  3. If power is reasonably shared (like 2014), the more visible power, usually the party controlling the Presidency, shall be considered the in-power side.

So the rule I’d conclude is not that low turnout benefits Republicans, but that it benefits the angrier side. 2002 is usually considered an anomalous year, but Republicans managed to get every one riled up about 9/11.

8

This is an interesting way to think about it and I would like to agree. Is there a study or article that supports this conclusion?