Not really
There’s a lot of handwringing and gnashing of teeth over that headline today. Oh my God! The Democrats are blowing it … again!!!! But it seems to me that the headline is totally missing the point.
We already knew that the GOP had higher turnout. This new study by Pew just reinforces the early data so I don’t think anyone should be surprised by it. Mid-terms always have higher turnout by the out party! Isn’t that the moldiest political trope in the world?
In most midterm years, the party that is not in the White House fares well. And while Republicans enjoyed a turnout advantage in 2022, they nevertheless fell short of expectations and did not match Democrats’ turnout advantage in 2018, the first midterm election after Mr. Trump took office.
Still, midterm voters historically skew older and whiter than voters in presidential years, a phenomenon that tends to benefit Republicans. The 2018 midterms were, in many ways, the exception to that rule, with increased turnout across age groups, but especially among young people. The 2022 electorate was more in line with historical trends.
The article goes on to spell doom and gloom for the Democrats because of this. I honestly don’t see why that should be. The Dems did very well and Donald Trump wasn’t even in the White House or on the ballot. He will be in 2024 and that’s likely to juice Democratic turnout substantially.
I’m not saying that Democrats shouldn’t work very, very hard to get turnout up in their base demographics like the Black community and Latinos. Nobody can be ignored, needless to say. I just don’t think this particular study tells us anything except that the 2022 election featured a traditionally Republican mid-term turnout and they tanked anyway. It seems to me that’s the real story.