End of conventional wisdom?

[muon2]

   I am not one who will say Bush has a mandate, but the fact he has 60 million + votes, and the Democrats threw everything they got to increase turnout, and the GOP has 94 like numbers in the congressional races in a high turnout election says that pundits have to rethink their math in terms of elections. 51% is still 51%, a close election that was driven but outside groups and events that for the most part broke Mr. Bushs way, but getting 51% of an election that had 60% Voting age population turnout vs a more typical 50% VAP turnout is a little different.
 
   I am curious what has changed that has made higher turnout benifit the GOP?

I'd still like to see the math that results in an estimate of 60% turnout of the VAP. Here are the real numbers, at present:

The voting age population this year is estimated to be 221.3 million people. The voting eligible population is estimated to be 203.9 million people. The current total of votes for President on the Atlas page is 118.5 million. I get a VAP turnout of 53.5%. If I restrict to the turnout of the VEP it only gets to 58.1%. That's better than 2000 and 1996, but below the turnout in 1992.

[muon2]

   I am not one who will say Bush has a mandate, but the fact he has 60 million + votes, and the Democrats threw everything they got to increase turnout, and the GOP has 94 like numbers in the congressional races in a high turnout election says that pundits have to rethink their math in terms of elections. 51% is still 51%, a close election that was driven but outside groups and events that for the most part broke Mr. Bushs way, but getting 51% of an election that had 60% Voting age population turnout vs a more typical 50% VAP turnout is a little different.
 
   I am curious what has changed that has made higher turnout benifit the GOP?

I'd still like to see the math that results in an estimate of 60% turnout of the VAP. Here are the real numbers, at present:

The voting age population this year is estimated to be 221.3 million people. The voting eligible population is estimated to be 203.9 million people. The current total of votes for President on the Atlas page is 118.5 million. I get a VAP turnout of 53.5%. If I restrict to the turnout of the VEP it only gets to 58.1%. That's better than 2000 and 1996, but below the turnout in 1992.

   Looking at the stats of this web site, I would like to know how the VAP  expanded from 196 million to 217 million in 4 years. I know immigration has been running high, but even if the US population was expanding at 2% a year(and even with illegal immigration it is not expanding at 2% a year) that would mean create an additional 21 million potential voters out of a base of roughly 200 million VAP in 2000.  I wonder if the 2004 estimate(and the 2000 estimate for that matter) includes illegals.

The Official US Census estimates for the population 18 and over since the last official count are:

July 1, 2000: 209.8 M
July 1, 2001: 212.5 M
July 1, 2002: 215.1 M
July 1, 2003: 217.8 M

Based on the released estimates, and projection data previously released by the US Census, Prof. Michael McDonald of George Mason U. has estimated the Nov. 2, 2004 population at 221.3 M. This is the voting age population (VAP) that is usually cited. For the Nov. 2000 election this was estimated to be 210.7 M, and the presidential VAP turnout was 50.0%.

If one deducts the non-citizens nationwide, and felons from those states that bar voting to felons, and adds eligible overseas voters, the voting eligible population (VEP) is 203.9 M. This is not commonly used by the media in determining turnout, and requires state-by-state estimates to subtract felons from the total. By comparison, the 2000 election VEP was 194.3 M, and the presidential VEP turnout was 54.2%.