End of conventional wisdom?

[JNB]

 Still trying to determine what the results of what this election mean. I for one thought that Kerry was going to win a slight victory, and the only way Bush was going to win was going to be an electoral college victory, not a popular vote victory. I was of course very much so in error.

   The election being an high turnout election with massive voter registration drives convinced me that the high turnout will help Kerry, and hurt Bush in the swing states, and the early returns confirmed this, but as the numbers continued to come in, I was surprised to say the least, but in retrospect, I should not have been.

  The previous conventional wisdom was that high turnout elections help Democrats, but going though previous presidential elections, while a high turnout helped JFK in 60, and the 74 and 82 mid term elections became Democratic blowouts with a high turnout, since then, it seems that lower turnout has either been a wash or even a negative for Democrats. In 92, a high turnout turned out to be a wash for Democrats, though Perot drove most of the higher turnout. In the 94 and 02 midterms, a high turnout helped the GOP rather than the Democrats, while the low turnout 98 mid terms did the opposite. The 96 presidential election had the lowest turnout where Clinton was re elected.

   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?

[JNB]

The 2004 popular vote numbers in the House are nearly identical to the 2002 popular vote numbers in the House.  Notice the similarity to the popular vote for President in 2004.

2004 numbers: Reps. 51-Dems. 47
2002 numbers: Reps. 51-Dems. 46

This lies in contrast to the 1996, 1998, 2000 House popular vote numbers which were tied at 49-49 for each election.

There has been a shift since 2000, it seems obvious now.

Whether this has to do with 9/11 or the strength of Bush's politics is still up in the air right now.

  The 51-47% figures are just the initial figures, I dont think races where the canidate is running unopposed are included. Going though the figures, I am surprised to see that many canidates in nominally contested races broke 200K in terms of votes cast for them. My gut feeling is that when all the votes are counted, the % of votes cast for the GOP in the house will be slightly above 52%, putting it in the neighborhood of their performance in 94.

[JNB]

 Still trying to determine what the results of what this election mean. I for one thought that Kerry was going to win a slight victory, and the only way Bush was going to win was going to be an electoral college victory, not a popular vote victory. I was of course very much so in error.

   The election being an high turnout election with massive voter registration drives convinced me that the high turnout will help Kerry, and hurt Bush in the swing states, and the early returns confirmed this, but as the numbers continued to come in, I was surprised to say the least, but in retrospect, I should not have been.

  The previous conventional wisdom was that high turnout elections help Democrats, but going though previous presidential elections, while a high turnout helped JFK in 60, and the 74 and 82 mid term elections became Democratic blowouts with a high turnout, since then, it seems that lower turnout has either been a wash or even a negative for Democrats. In 92, a high turnout turned out to be a wash for Democrats, though Perot drove most of the higher turnout. In the 94 and 02 midterms, a high turnout helped the GOP rather than the Democrats, while the low turnout 98 mid terms did the opposite. The 96 presidential election had the lowest turnout where Clinton was re elected.

   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 have the filling that the Republicans have exhausted all their turnout potential in last election. Any additional turnout would probably benefit the Democrats.
It is not going to happen in the near future, but I think that with 70% turnout the Democrats will easily win.
It is not clear what the turnout was this time. According to the barometer in the atlas it looks like the mid fifties.

   The Vorlon says that when "spoiled" votes are to be included, the turnout will go beyond 60% of the vote. Both parties have things to worry about in the future. The GOP has the problem of dramatically over valued real estate that can cause a nasty recession, not to mention demographic changes, with many of the illegal immigrants from Latin America being from the poorest regions and being the most unchurched, so being most sympathetic to socialism.

  On the other hand, the Democrats have to worry about is their backers and the unions threw everything they got at president Bush, and in the rust belt states that Kerry won, (PA, MI,MN and WI) at 51-49 or 51-48 margin is not that comfortable at all conserdering the size and scope of the turnout efforts and Mr Bushs very unpopular stands on "free" trade and immigration in these states, not to mention his severe lack of articulation skills.

[JNB]

   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.