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Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Teixeira: What If Everyone Voted? Be Careful What You Wish For!

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

I’ve questioned the wonder-working powers of high voter turnout before but, shockingly, not everyone has agreed. But here is some more evidence undercutting the more-turnout-will-solve-everything thesis from a massive study by the Knight Foundation.

There’s a great deal in their report, including a very interesting typology of nonvoters, both their characteristics and reasons for not voting, which suggest a complex phenomenon not reducible to voter suppression and/or insufficiently radical candidates.

But, regardless of motivation,what if all those nonvoters really did vote? Surely the Democrats would kick Trump’s ass back to Mar-a-Lago for good. Sorry, it’s not that simple, as the chart of key swing states below shows. Democrats would benefit some in the national popular vote but wouldn’t be helped sufficiently in the Electoral College to take Trump out.

If this doesn’t make you question the turnout mythology currently popular in Sanders wing of the Democratic party, I don’t know what will.

One comment on “Teixeira: What If Everyone Voted? Be Careful What You Wish For!

  1. Candace on

    These people are giving their opinion knowing they aren’t going to vote which means its likely they don’t feel strongly about their choice. Additionally the reasons they gave in the study for not voting also show they would not be giving much time to the decision on who to vote for.
    If they were actually considering it beyond feeling like they should give an answer to the question the results might change. As it is the larger score here was Someone else and don’t know/no answer.

    Anyway, isn’t it Republican to be afraid of everyone voting?

    “‘We have three major voter suppression operations underway,’ says a senior official,” the Businessweek report said. “They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African-Americans.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign-voter-suppression.html

    Reply

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