As for the second part, I've never seen any evidence that The Left (either as an organized (hah) group or just people on that part of the political spectrum) fails to turn out for midterms and that's why Dems lose. Maybe someone could point me to that evidence.
Well, let's take 2010 as compared to 2008. Many fewer people voted in 2010 than in 2008. In 2008 Barack Obama won big and Democrats took both the house and Senate. in 2010 Republicans won big, took the House, Senate, many governorships and state legislatures and senates. SOMEONE DIDN'T SHOW UP TO VOTE IN 2010 AND IT OBVIOUSLY WASN'T CONSERVATIVES WHO DIDN'T DO THE SHOWING UP.
Here's some of what Project Vote's research Memo, An Analysis of Who Voted (and Who Didn't Vote) in the 2010 election.said.
Senior citizens turned out in force. The number of ballots cast by seniors increased by 16 percent compared to 2006, and seniors strongly shifted to the Republicans, increasing their support for national GOP House candidates to 59 percent from 49 percent in 2006. Youth (18 to 29 years old) remained strongly in the camp of the Democratic Party, casting a majority (55 percent) of their ballots for Democratic House candidates, but their turnout was anemic.
Relative to the 2008 presidential election, minority and youth voters dropped out of the voting population at faster rates than whites, and the gains made in 2008 toward a more representative electorate disappeared.
Latinos defied national trends and increased their share of the voting population in several key states, saving at least three U.S. Senate seats for the Democrats.
Women increased their share of the voting population and significantly shifted their support to the
Republican Party.
Turnout in midterm elections is always lower than turnout in presidential years, and midterm voters on the whole are older. The 2010 midterm election is distinctive in the degree to which normal midterm voting trends in favor of an older electorate accelerated. Older voters whose turnout rates slipped in the 2008 presidential election to 70 percent from 71 percent in 2004, returned to the polls in force in 2010. As expected in a midterm contest, younger voters (age 18 to 29) melted away from their impressive 2008 presidential election performance, casting just five percent more ballots in 2010 than in 2006. Voters age 65 and older (senior citizens) were the stars of the show this year; they expanded their participation and cast 16 percent more ballots than four years ago. Senior citizens, who make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, and were 16 percent of the 2008 electorate, accounted for 21 percent of midterm voters. Seniors also swung heavily to the Republican Party, increasing their support for Republican House candidates to 59 percent, 10 percentage points higher than in 2006.
Moreover, the wealthiest voters, those with annual family incomes of at least $200,000 (who are disproportionately older and white), continued a trend observed over the last three federal elections to significantly increase their share of the voting population from five percent in 2006 to eight percent this year.
Wealthy voters also swung to the Republicans by more than 10 percentage points, from 53 percent in favor of GOP House candidates in 2006, to 64 percent in 2010.
I doubt that means that people who voted for Obama two years earlier switched their allegiance to the Republican-fascists AND THEY IN MANY CASES WERE FASCISTS IN 2010. It means that the ones who stayed home were many of those on the left, young voters who skewed Democratic when they did vote in lesser numbers as did other parts of the Democratic coalition.
Really, I'm glad to see you sometimes making an effort but you could try to make it cohere with something other than your pandering to a youth market that is not going to suddenly flood your blog. As to me, I seem to recall much discouraging talk about Obama and many angry declarations that they were never vote for him again, that he had cooties, that the Democrats were weak, sellouts, Nancy Pelosi, especially coming in for many angry denunciations - and that's just what I remember from the comment threads on your blog. That kind of vote killing rhetoric was thick in the air in the virtual lefty empire of the ether. If I had more time I'd research it and come up with massive evidence of voter discouragement on the left in 2010. AND THOSE GUYS WHO THEY WERE DISCOURAGING WEREN'T ABOUT TO VOTE A FULL TEA PARTY TICKET.
Duncan, put some effort into it. You have a PhD in econ, for pity sake, you can surely follow the logic behind the results.
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