Markos Moulitsas: Races turn on turnout

This November, Oregon led the nation in eligible voter turnout with a 70.89 percent statewide rate. The lowest turnout rate for any county in the state was Umatilla County, in northeastern Oregon, with 62.6 percent. Meanwhile, Wheeler, Wallowa, Sherman and Lake counties all had rates over 80 percent.

Amazingly, Oregon voters turned out at this rate despite a lack of a marquee race at the top of the ticket. 

{mosads}Compare that to the 36 percent national average, and Oregon looks amazing. The next best turnout rate can be found in Maine, way back at 58 percent. Wisconsin was at 56.5 percent. Other than Alaska, Colorado and Minnesota, no other state managed to break 50 percent. 

Oregon was also the only state in which Democrats made serious gains this year. Not only did incumbent Sen. Jeff Merkley win handily, by nearly 20 points, but Democrats established dominant control of the Legislature. In the Senate, they went from a 16-14 edge, with one Democrat often siding with the GOP, to a solid 18-11 edge. In the House, Democrats swept every competitive seat, ultimately notching an additional seat for a 35-25 majority. 

So what makes Oregon special? 

It’s simple: Citizens vote by mail, a method specifically chosen to make voter participation easier. 

And if you look at the results, you can see why Republicans want to make sure mail balloting never spreads anywhere new, because the last thing they want, or need, is for more people to vote. 

We have one party that is dependent on a lack of civic participation to win, and a party that can’t spur civic participation to (literally) save its life in non-presidential years — two parties that are incapable of breaking out of a boom-bust cycle. Democrats win when people turn out, like 2012 and in Oregon this year, and Republicans win when people don’t turn out, like 2014 in the rest of the country this year.

The results can be downright absurd. 

Republicans easily won the Alabama gubernatorial race this year by a whopping 64 percent to 36 percent margin. No big deal, right? No one expects Democrats to be competitive in Alabama anymore, and this race was on no one’s radar. Incumbent Gov. Robert Bentley won easily with his 747,357 votes. 

But in 2012, President Obama got 796,696 votes in Alabama. If everyone who turned out for Obama in 2012 voted again this year in Alabama, Democrats would’ve unseated the state’s otherwise popular incumbent Republican! 

In South Carolina, Republican incumbent Gov. Nikki Haley won easily by 15 points, with 696,645 votes. In 2012, Obama got 865,941 votes in the state. 

In battleground Florida, Gov. Rick Scott won a narrow, 1-point reelection victory this year. In 2012, Obama got 4.2 million votes. Given that Scott won by just 64,000 votes, even a small fraction of that 1.3 million undervote could’ve made all the difference. 

Simplistic as it may sound, it’s clear Democrats win when people participate. The less representative the electorate is of the country, the better Republicans do. And if recent history is any indication, nothing will change. Why should Republicans bother to expand their appeal to the broader electorate when every midterm election validates their focus on their shrinking base? And why should Democrats invest in better voter participation if they win the big presidential years, validating their entrenched consultant corps? 

The party that answers those questions wisely will own the next decade.

Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos.