I stated that in all elections other than presidential ones, it is best to focus on the base of the party since they are more likely to show up to vote. My argument is that turnout in non-presidential elections is low enough that the base of the 2 parties provide enough voters to win an election.
So what is turnout for various elections on the federal and state level?
Here are some rough figures of voter turnout as a % of eligible voters
Presidential election - 55-60%
Midterm federal election - 40%
Federal presidential primary - 25-30% if neither party has an incumbent (as low as 15% if one party has an incumbent)
Congressional primaries - 20-25%
Does anyone have other figures? I assume the primaries for state and local elections or the general elections in state and local are pretty low too but I’m not sure how low. Does the primary for a local or state election in an off year drop to 10%, or does the bottom seem to be about 20%?
In the Tennessee primary today for governor and a senator (and, of course, other local elections), almost 850,000 people voted out of around 5 million eligible voters. So a little less than 20%.
It was pretty lopsided - 600,000 Republican, 250,000 Democrat. I had hoped for a better showing by Democrats. But it’s Tennessee.
I need to revise the numbers on this. I wasn’t looking at the percentage of vote in when I wrote this.
So around 1,150,00 people voted which makes it more than 20%. Around 775,000 Republicans and 375,000 Democrats.
I found it interesting that about 75,000 less Republicans voted in the Senate primary than for Governor. The Democrat vote was about the same for each. So maybe Marsha Blackburn won’t have as easy a time against Phil Bredesen as everyone thinks. He was a popular 2 term Democrat governor not that long ago. And she really is a Trumpster idiot. Maybe there is hope.
