The broadest historical trends in voter turnout in the United States presidential elections have been determined by the gradual expansion of voting rights from the initial restriction to male property owners aged twenty-one or older in the early years of the country’s independence, to all citizens aged eighteen or older in the mid-twentieth century. Voter turnout in the presidential elections has historically been better than the turnout for midterm elections.[1]
https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/history-of-voting-in-america-timeline.pdf
If Liberals Voted …
After all, polls show that a majority of Americans supportprogressive positions on most big issues. Yet Republicans dominate state and federal government.
.. Turnout is a big reason. Last year, Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for Clinton over Trump in a landslide. Only 43 percent of citizens in that age group voted, however.
.. By contrast, Americans over age 65 supported Trump — and 71 percent of them voted.
.. First, don’t make the mistake of blaming everything on nefarious Republicans. Yes, Republicans have gerrymandered districts and shamefully suppressed votes (and Democrats should keep pushing for laws that make voting easier). But the turnout gap is bigger than any Republican scheme.
.. My instinct is that the answer for Democrats involves a passionate message of fairness — of providing jobs, lifting wages, protecting rights and fighting Trump’s plutocracy... It can be bolder than Democrats have been in decades. But it should not resemble a complete progressive wish list, which could turn off swing voters without even raising turnout... The country’s real silent majority prefers Democrats, if only that majority could be stirred to vote.
How Hillary’s Very Bad September Could Be Very Good for Her in November Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-2016-september-214265#ixzz4KqkIh5ef Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
The greatest threat to her was soft turnout. Now Trump’s proximity in the polls could light a fire under wavering Clinton supporters.
constituencies most critical to her campaign seem to have no sense of urgency about keeping the Donald Trump out of the White House. While Hispanics, who backed Obama in 2012 by a more than 2-1 margin, support Clinton by a similar margin, they seem far less inclined to vote than they did four years ago.
.. That is what could change now that Trump threatens to actually take the White House.
.. But what may be their most powerful weapon is the clear possibility that Trump could win, which is why Clinton’s very bad few weeks could, in the end, be very good for her.
.. see what a similar vote—for Ralph Nader—did. His 94,000 voters in Florida would have wound up giving Gore a net of about 20,000 votes—more than enough to make butterfly ballots and hanging chads irrelevant. Now, between launching the Iraq War and the two Supreme Court justices Bush appointed, did it really make no difference?”
.. If you vote for Jill Stein as a progressive, you are helping to put in power a president whose tax plan makes the rich richer, who thinks climate chance is a hoax, who wants to abolish whole swaths of environmental protection laws. So voting for Johnson or Stein means you’re voting for a label—a ’libertarian,’ or a ‘progressive’—without realizing that the consequence of that vote could lead to a president who rejects everything you claim to hold dear.”