Did Democrats Actually Stay Home in 2010?

[moksha]

I am asking here first, before diving into time-consuming research, to see if anyone has the answers. Or, for that matter, if someone could point to me where the answers can be found.

I keep reading that the reason we lost the House and seats in the Senate in 2010 is because Democrats, specifically liberals, stayed home and did not vote, ostensibly in protest or to 'teach a lesson'. I find this hard to believe that this was the determining factor. If I had to guess, I would think that Independents went more for Republicans than Democrats.

Does anyone have, at hand, percentages of voters, by party for 2006, 2008 and 2010?

Are there any good exit polling that show who voted for who, demographically?

This information would be more useful if by state and district to compare what actually happened. Like I said, I have a hard time buying into the blanket statement that Democrats stayed home in significant numbers to lead to the losses.

[hobbit709]

1. All the ones i know voted.

[moksha]

2. Same here. I know that is purely anecdotal, but everyone I know

who has usually voted, voted. I personally don't know anyone who is politically active who choose to stay home in protest or apathy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. No, not when you look at poll internals

moderates voted red... liberals voted like they always vote.

Notice that is why they are going right and blaming the left.

[Capn Sunshine]

23. I agree

It wasn't a case of anything other than low turnout, which is historical in mid terms. The "left" which is really a poor turn of a phrase to accomodate a sliver of the Democratic Party, stayed home. IN the mids, they usually do. That is why congress has historically has a red tint in the lower house. the left can be a counterbalance to the more right elements that appeal to the midstream voter. But when you go after your own sitting President because of political naivete is only further entreches the power base of the party on the right.

Remember the last time this happened? We encouraged one of the greatest Democratic Presidents of all time, one who won in a huge decisive landslide in '64, to step down and not run for another term. Then we ended up with Hubert Humphrey. A great Democrat in his own right, very liberal from Minnesota. I think Paul Wellstone worked on his campaign.

Result? We ended up with President Nixon.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. You are misunderstanding what I wrote

the left did come out and voted... BUT MODERATES who also came out, did so and voted overwhelmingly REPUBLICAN.

[Capn Sunshine]

40. I agreed, really!

That's exactly what happened. The rest of what I wrote was editorializing. But it was still a low turnout contest. Mid Terms always are.

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. My apoligies then

and yes, midterms are always low turn out and older too.

[awoke_in_2003]

39. funny how some will blame...

everything on the left, even though we are consistently there, pulling the levers for D's

[JoePhilly]

47. The moderates voted red for one reason ...

because there is only one media narrative and its repeated by the right and the left ... Obama is BAD.

The right and left use two totally different arguments, arguments that are 180 degrees apart, but that is irrelevant, because the CORE message is the same.

Obama is BAD!!!

So moderates ... those who don't follow politics in any detailed manner, from the right and the left, heard the same CORE message.

Obama is Bad!!!

Those moderates leaning right decided to vote against Obama ... those leaning left, decided it didn't matter, and stayed home.

That's the game plan for 2012 ... sell the same CORE message, with 2 totally opposite framings.

And it doesn't matter WHICH reason a person picks to think Obama is BAD ... just so long as they do.

And we get a GOP President.

[nadinbrzezinski]

50. So instead of claiming the LEFT staid home

how are you going to deal with that? I agree, that is part of the problem... so when are we going to FNALLY listen to Lakoff? Yes, FRAMING MATTERS.

[JoePhilly]

51. The moderate left stayed home. The moderate right voted.

The GOP's entire goal is to block up the government so nothing gets done.

So Obama can either (a) do nothing, or (b) get some things done.

Those to the farther left could be helping him. But by endlessly attacking him they hurt him with the moderate left.

Let's take DADT ... for months that was an important issue, used by the left, to claim Obama was bad. He wasn't doing anything about. And we were told that he was secretly against repealing it. Now that its going away, what's the result?

Well, on Stephanie Miller's show last week, Charlie Pierce is on ... back before the repeal, he was one of those saying Obama was bad for not doing anything about it and speculated that Obama might not even want to repeal it. Stephanie pointed this out to him last week (he was ripping Obama on some other action that Charlie was predicting), and he claimed, "well, DADT isn't really a key issue for his reelection".

And this is common. Left wing pundits predict Obama is going to do something evil, he doesn't do it, and its dropped. And if he does something we want, it stops being important.

Let's take the recent debt deal.

The prediction on DU was that Obama was definitely, absolutely, positively going to make a deal that would cut / gut / slash / dismantle Social Security. No such thing happened. So did the negative attacks end ... nope, they got louder. The same predictions were made before the state of the union in Jan, during Obama's budget in Feb, again when he gave a speech on the debt in April, and now again for most of July.

Prediction after prediction that THIS IS IT!!! He's cutting Social Security!!! And then each time, the prediction is wrong. But the screaming continues.

[nadinbrzezinski]

53. Alas that is not what the polls show

it shows that the centrists and indies who voted voted RIGHT... the left voted left as they always do.

We have to wake to that reality... it is not the left who is the problem... it is the centrists... who are mythical and finicky as hell.

[JoePhilly]

55. Yes, that is EXACTLY what I said ....

The people in the MIDDLE ... the CENTRISTS ... they heard the OBAMA BAD MESSAGE ... from BOTH the right and the left.

And those centrists and independents who tend to lean right, found the energy to vote against Obama, because he is BAD.

And those centrists and independents who tend to lean left, stayed home, because Obama is BAD.

And you are correct, those centrists are finicky ... if you have the right message, you can get them to vote, or to stay home.

In this case, you can use the same core message, Obama is BAD, with two TOTALLY opposite framings, and get BOTH outcomes.

That is the point.

[kentuck]

4. I would think the independents and the first-time voters might have stayed home?

I wonder if the Democratic Party can grow without growing the base? Being a moderate, pragmatic Party does not appeal to many new voters. You have to give them some red meat. Otherwise, we are drifting toward a permanent minority Party.

[moksha]

6. I agree about needing to give red meat. That is almost exclusively

why the teabaggers were able to win so many seats. Although they are insane, they put a fire in many bellies.

[kentuck]

14. And that is what got the Repubs to the polls in 2010...

We would be wise to remember that.

[demosincebirth]

17. Democrats have always been fighting for organized labor and for the workingman. That's

a good start for me.

[ecstatic]

5. The machines are still rogue, IMO

I strongly believe that GA isn't as red as the machines lead people to believe.

It could be that the "powers that be" decided to rig things again.

[Chemical Bill]

56. +1

[MineralMan]

7. Not everywhere, they didn't.

I looked at the districts in Minnesota where Republicans won state legislative seats, unseating the incumbent Democrat. In those districts, Democratic turnout was down, but Republican turnout was up. That's on a percentage basis, compared to 2008. Very few districts came close to 2008 turnout. My own precinct had one of the highest turnouts in the state, at 60%. In that precinct, percentages between Democrats and Republicans closely followed the percentages in 2008. Every Democratic candidate on the ballot won, with a 60% margin being typical. In districts where turnout was high, Democrats held their seats. A republican won in the Duluth area for US Congress. that area has been solidly Democratic for many years. Turnout of Democrats was lower than usual, on a percentage basis.

[Cleita]

8. It seems that many did.

Alan Grayson, who lost his district, actually investigated why he lost and it pointed to the fact that those who had voted for him in the previous election had in fact stayed home.

[waking wisconsin]

9. or did Koch perhaps pay Rove's new IT Tech to fix some elections

kinda strange how the house is suddenly filled with Koch plants that get everything they want...yet WE THE PEOPLE don't seem to support their actions.



All it takes is 5 minutes to hack, and a media that makes up all the lies to go with it.

[littlewolf]

10. none that I know of .... our congressman Butterfield was returned to DC ...

[Odin2005]

11. Yes, they did stay home. And don't believe the propaganda about mythical "centrist independents".

The only reason the Pukes won is because Dems and Progressive independents were disillusioned while Republicans and wingnut independents were whipped up into a froth. There are very few "centrist independent swing voters", they are a myth created by the political establishment. You win elections by energizing your base and getting them to the polls, not chasing after a mythical center.

[EFerrari]

13. The exit polls say they didn't stay home.

Independent jobs voters swung for Republicans.

That part isn't propaganda. The propaganda comes in when the President's people say those voters care about the deficit. They don't. They care about jobs.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/vote-2010-elections-results-midterm-exit-poll-analysis/story?id=12003775

[Odin2005]

18. No, progressive independents stayed home and wingnut independents voted like crazy.

That's all the data means. Obama's centrist BS caused disillusioned left-wing indies to stay home.

[EFerrari]

20. Hmm. Well, you may be right about that.

I hadn't considered a real split among indies.

What I found out this morning that framed it in a new light for me, is that 2/3s of people who vote their wallets voted for Obama in 2008. We lost those people in 2010 and I don't now how he's going to get them back.

[Odin2005]

27. That you never realized that shows how powerful the MSM meme about "centrist voters" is.

In fact most independents are left-wingers and right-wingers disappointed in the Dem and GOP party establishments, respectively. There are very few truly "swing" voters.

[EFerrari]

32. Actually, I never consume the MSM, I've just never thought about

independent voters very much. :)

Party identification does seem to be at a real low right now, though.

[mzteris]

12. a couple of articles that point to "low Dem" turnout

In 2008, polls showed that young people were overwhelmingly supportive of Obama and the Democrats. And they turned out in droves. According to the research group CIRCLE—The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement—which tracks civic engagement among young voters, 51 percent of 18- to-19-year-olds voted that year.

In 2010, polls showed that young people were still supportive of Obama and the Democrats. But only 20.9 percent of them bothered to vote.

. . . The Circle study suggests that turnout among young voters in 2010 was down almost 10 percent from the last midterm election year, 2006, when Obama was not even on the ballot.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/156470/young-voter-turnout-fell-60-2008-2010-dems-wont-win-2012-if-trend-continues


******

"It's really a turnout game and the folks who turned out were more likely to be Republican voters," said Barry Burden, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nationally, Republicans were able to build a winning coalition with strong support from suburbanites, baby boomers and middle class whites.

"Those groups really swelled in their share of the electorate compared to four years ago, the last midterms," Burden said.


http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20101104/APC0101/11040559/Preliminary-results-show-about-50-percent-voter-turnout-midterm-election


*****


. . . Groups that typically vote for Democrats — young people, blacks and urbanites — voted in smaller numbers Tuesday than they did in 2006 and 2008.

[JDPriestly]

44. Yes, young people stayed home in 2010.

We old progressives vote no matter what.

But we won't work for a politician who does not share our values. Why should we?

And it's our work that gets voters including young voters out.

That is why Obama's current strategy will only succeed if he faces an opponent that voters despise.

[Blue_In_AK]

15. Everyone I know voted,

and, in fact, worked very, very hard to get Scott McAdams elected. We were no match for Lisa Murkowski and her money, though.

[hfojvt]

16. it may be the other way around

Here's some data off the top of my head, for my own county.

In 2004, our Congressional candidate lost the county by about 16,000 votes to 10,000 votes. So about 26,000 voted.
In 2006, our Congressional candidate lost the county by about 9,400 votes to 9,200 votes. So about 18,600 voted.
In 2008, our Congressional candidate lost the county by about 15,000 votes to 11,000 votes. About 26,000 voted.

So, in the first place, it seems typical in a non-presidential year (which I call an "off year") for about 1/3 of the voters to stay home, maybe more. 2006 was a year when Democrats were fired up, pissed off by the Bush administration, so fewer of US stayed home in 2006 (I believe, I don't remember stats for 2002, when we had a weak Congressional candidate).

In 2010, our Congressional candidate lost the county by 12,572 votes to 5,928 votes. Now we did have a weak Congressional candidate (I say with some irony since she was clearly strong enough to beat me in the primary, but I would have been a weak candidate as well.) But our Governor candidate also lost the county by 11,551 to 6,411 and the Governor and Lt. Governor candidates were both State Senators from this county.

It's hard to tell by these numbers, because in 2006 and also 2008, Nancy Boyda was picking up Republican votes. But part of their victory was that Republicans were fired up and fewer of them stayed home last year. They got an extra 2,100 votes in my county. But the other part does seem to be that we got 2,500 fewer votes as well. At least part of it was MORE Republicans turning out as much as it was fewer Democrats turning out. But then again, at least a third of our county is registered independents.

[LWolf]

19. I voted. nt

[leveymg]

21. Yes, in key demographics - new and young D voters who came out in record #s in '08 stayed home.

For a review of VA '09 results, please see: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/459

[readmoreoften]

25. So young people swayed by Obama's leftist rhetoric, but not his and other Dems true values

didn't come out.


I guess that should be expected when you run a manipulative campaign. Had he actually been the candidate he pretended to be, this might not have happened.

[leveymg]

31. I read the data the same way. Coat-tail effect works both ways.

It can help Ds, as it did when Hope and Change Obama was at the head of the ticket in '08, or can suppress key voting groups, as is likely to happen with Compromise and Catfood Obama runs in '12.

[Cosmocat]

42. He has been ...

That you projected something on him that he did not offer isn't his problem ...

[treestar]

57. I doubt that's true

It would be just as likely it was because Obama was not running.

[readmoreoften]

22. No. It was the independents and moderates who "came out" for the more conservative candidate.

[Odin2005]

28. No, the RW indies voted, the LW indies stayed home.

Putting all Independents into a single category is intentionally misleading and intellectually dishonest, it is part of the false MSM narrative about "centrist voters".

[southernyankeebelle]

24. Try over at Nate Silvers blog. He does allot of that kind of information. He might

have it on file.

[jtuck004]

26. Well, according to this, no

Wki

"Political analysts in October 2010 predicted sweeping Republican gains this election, but despite a reported "enthusiasm gap" between likely Republican and Democratic voters,<6> turnout increased relative to the last U.S. midterm elections without any significant shift in voters' political identification.<7> The swaying views of self-declared independent voters, however, were largely responsible for the shift from Democratic to Republican gains.<8>"


The references below may be instructive...

[Ozymanithrax]

30. What I saw in the demographics was that...

the youth stayed home, and there was a spike in older voters (50 and higher), most of the older voters voted Republican.

You will also see that there was a smaller turnout than in 2008, which means that independents probalb sayed home more than Democrats or Republicans. There are peole that only vote in Presidential elections.

[demmiblue]

33. Here is the related graph:

[moksha]

36. That is helpful.

It seems from the comments in this thread, it was not liberals and Democrats who stayed home, either from apathy or protest, that swung the election. But more the young voters who were motivated in 2008 but less so in 2010.

I never put much stock in the meme that liberals wanting to teach a lesson had anything to do with it.

[0rganism]

59. 20 points older, 10 points whiter

blammo - instant wingnut mandate

[nc4bo]

34. We had lines voting in '08. No lines in '10.

Seems everyone but the teabaggers stayed home.

[Tiggeroshii]

35. That's how I felt canvassing...

out of all the registered Democrats I talked to who voted for and volunteered for Obama in 2008, there was a substantial portion of people who told me they were not voting at all in 2010. Judging from the people I talked to anyways, I see that as being a very possible thing.

[sufrommich]

37. 2010 was a typical midterm election as far as voters go.Less

young and minority voters than presidential elections get.

[patrice]

38. I remember some trollish talk from Blue in the primaries. Thom Hartmann mentioned it and subsequentl

y tried to flag people off of crossing over to vote for some Red idiot in the primaries, because ostensibly they expected them to be easier to beat in the general. Don't know how that all worked out.

[ldconfig]

43. I voted in 2010

So did VBS scripts on specific windows computers.

[upi402]

45. exit polls lie, trust the voting machines!

:sarcasm:
Sorry, still bitter about nothing being done while Democrats had the power to correct that mess.

[BzaDem]

46. Liberals were the same percentage of the electorate as they were in the last midterm. So no. n/t

[WillyT]

48. Well... This Is Ironic... And May Answer Part Of Your Question...

Why Obama isn’t sweating the midterms
By Joshua Spivak - Reuters
OCT 7, 2010 09:02 EDT

<snip>

With the Democrats thought to be facing a tidal wave of voter anger, and Republican incumbent Senators already being swept out of office in record numbers, the one person who seems unconcerned is President Obama. He has good reason not to sweat: while conservative activists are hoping the 2010 result is a harbinger for the presidential election, history shows that even disastrous mid-term elections don’t say much about a president’s re-election chances.

It has become a cliché that the president’s party suffers defeat in their first mid-term election. With a few exceptions, most notably the Republicans in 2002, the president’s party invariably witnesses setbacks in that first national return to the voters. Sometimes the impact is modest, other times the impact is so severe that it costs the party in power control over the legislature. Everyone is quick to remember the Democrats disaster in 1994, when they lost 54 seats and control of the House for the first time in four decades.

But the same phenomena occurred in 1954 when the Republicans coughed back the House to the Democrats, and in 1946 when the Republicans took control after a gain of 55 seats. Similarly, before the 1982 election, the Republicans had a minority in the House, but it was large enough to make deals. But a decisive Democratic performance ended that. Practically every mid-term has examples, including a 60+ seat deluge to the Republicans in 1914 following Woodrow Wilson’s first term and a 50+ seat victory that gave the Democrats control of the House in 1910.

What is noteworthy about the mid-term debacles is that they rarely spell disaster for the president. Looking at the elections of the past, one can see that Clinton, Reagan, Nixon and Eisenhower all cruised to reelection, and both Truman and Wilson skated by successfully. Rather than be hampered by the opposition controlling one or both houses of the legislature, these chief executives were strengthened. It gave the president an easy foil to score quick political points.

<snip>

Link: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2010/10/07/why-obama-isnt-sweating-the-midterms/

:shrug:

[TBF]

49. Can't speak for others - but I voted straight dem ticket here

in Brazoria County, TX.

[kctim]

52. I don't know any who stayed home

but I know quite a few who voted Republican because of the health care mandate. Claire is very lucky she wasn't up for re-election.

[Marrah_G]

54. I don't know anyone who didn't vote.

[treestar]

58. Off year elections always have fewer voters

And fewer voters tends to help Republicans.