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Human Events
Voter turnout
boomed under Bush, not under Obama
By: Michael Barone
1/2/2015
There is a widespread assumption that President Obama has expanded the
electorate and inspired booming voter turnout. One could make a case
for that based on the 2008 election. But since then, not so much.
Looking back over the past 15 years, the biggest surge in voter turnout
came during George W. Bush’s presidency. In the Obama years, turnout
actually declined in both the 2012 presidential and the 2014
congressional elections.
In 2000, about 105 million Americans voted for president. In 2004, 122
million did. That’s a 16 percent rise, the largest between two
presidential elections since 1948 and 1952. Turnout increased further
in 2008, to 131 million. That’s a 7 percent increase over 2004.
There’s a similar pattern between the off-year elections during that
period. Turnout was 66 million in 1998, when Republicans were mulling
the impeachment of Bill Clinton. It increased to 73 million in 2002,
when Bush’s post-9/11 job approval remained high, and to 80 million in
2006, when Bush’s job approval was languishing at levels similar to
Obama’s this year.
One conclusion here is that increased turnout can result from both
hearty approval and vitriolic opposition. You see both in the numbers:
Bush won 11.6 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000, but John
Kerry received 8 million more votes than Al Gore. Republicans
apparently did a better job than Democrats of getting their votes out
that year, but feeling was high on both sides.
Four years later, Democrats did a much better job turning out the vote.
The Obama campaign inspired many young voters and blacks to join the
electorate. It targeted four previously safe Republican states —
Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri — and carried three of
them, losing Missouri by an eyelash. North Carolina, though not the
fastest-growing state, had the biggest percentage increase in turnout
between 2004 and 2008 as the Obama campaign registered thousands of
blacks and students.
Those numbers showed enthusiasm for Obama. But the numbers since then
have not. Off-year turnout spiked from 80 million in 2006 to 86.5
million in 2010. But Democrats got 3.4 million fewer votes than they
did four years earlier, and Republicans got 9 million more...
Read the rest of the article at Human Events
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