In graduate school, our departmental T-shirts featured the titles of two books authored by distinguished faculty.
The front asked “Who Governs?”, the title of Robert Dahl’s classic dissecting the nature of power relations in New Haven politics, and “Who Votes?”, the title of Steven Rosenstone and Raymond Wolfinger’s volume about electoral participation.
{mosads}On the back we graduate students asked, “Who cares?”
Well, we did, as does most everyone reading this newspaper. Who votes can make a real difference in who governs.
Professors Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian Schaffner have done a tremendous service by putting data and numbers behind what we have already long known about turnout: When it falls off in non-presidential years, Democrats suffer disproportionately.
They eschew the badly flawed self-reports in surveys, using actual turnout data recorded on voter files instead.
Between 2006 and 2012, 37 percent of Americans voted in neither of the two presidential or two midterm years. These are truly consistent non-voters.
At the other end of the spectrum, 25 percent were consistent voters, casting ballots in both presidential and both midterm years.
Readers may be surprised to learn that just 6 percent are presidential-year-only voters who voted in 2008 and 2012 but not in the midterms.
That leaves nearly a third of the public who are inconsistent, showing up for this presidential election or that midterm.
The more important question, though, is who cares? Does it make a difference?
The answer is definitively yes.
The composition of the electorate is different in presidential years and midterms. African-Americans, for example, comprise 9 percent of consistent voters but 13 percent of presidential-year-only voters.
Even more dramatically, the average age of consistent voters is 57, while it’s 47 for those voting only in presidential years.
The partisan gaps are even wider. Democrats enjoy a narrow 3-point edge among consistent voters, but a vast 21-point margin among presidential-year-only voters.
Using a YouGov online panel survey of 19,000 interviewed in both 2010 and 2012, and matched back to the voter file, the researchers can speak directly to electoral outcomes.
Among consistent voters, President Obama ran 1 point behind Mitt Romney. But among presidential-year-only voters, Obama’s margin was 23 points, which together produce precisely the 4-point margin he garnered.
The 2010 midterms reflected a different turnout pattern.
Consistent voters favored GOP House candidates by 4 points, while the presidential-year-only voters (who did not show up) would have given Democrats a 6-point margin.
However, even if all those presidential-year voters had cast ballots, the Republican advantage would have been reduced by just 1, from 4 to 3 points.
Would we have lost 63 seats in 2010 if the presidential-year voters had turned out? No. But we would have lost 55 seats and control of the House.
Put differently, recreating the “Obama coalition” or the “Obama turnout” would not have fundamentally altered the 2010 outcome.
This brings back a topic I analyzed before the last cycle.
Those who say “it’s all about turnout” are just not correct.
In any given close race, turning out your supporters more effectively than your opponents turn out theirs can make all the difference between winning and losing.
Do it, and do it well.
But in general, turnout alone is inadequate to the task.
Remember, in 2012 Obama lost consistent voters by just 1 point. House Democrats in 2010 lost those very same people by 4. And while Obama was wining presidential-year-only voters by 23 points, House Democrats would have only won those individuals by 6.
There was enough swing, enough movement among both groups to prevent turnout alone from altering the outcome.
And when you recognize that replicating presidential year turnout in a midterm is impossible, the strategy of relying on turnout alone can leave you with too few voters to win.
Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the minority leader of the Senate and the Democratic whip in the House.