Presidential Election Voter Turnout And The Outcome Of The 2016 Election

Executive Summary

Republican Turnout Was Disappointing, But Democratic Turnout Was Truly Dismal

Between 2008 and 2016, the share of eligible voters voting for the Republican nominee fell 6.7%, while the share of eligible voters voting for the Democratic nominee fell 17.7%. These figures are derived from an extended analysis of the number of eligible voters, as opposed to the total population or number of likely voters in both 2008 and 2016. That analysis also casts light on the importance of policies like felony disenfranchisement in some key battleground states that worked to the detriment of Democrats.

These numbers show a stark divide between the parties in a year where the public had an unfavorable opinion of both major party nominees throughout the election.  But, it overstates slack in Republican turnout because its main demographics are shrinking in the share of eligible voters over the last eight year, while it understates the degree to which Democrat voter turnout collapsed in 2016, because the main Democratic party demographics have been growing since 2008.

Republican Voters Are More Reliable And Loyal To Their Party Than Democratic Leaning Voters

Donald Trump won at a time when the an economic situation that was more or less neutral between the two political parties based upon historical experience, although it may have slightly favored Republicans. The overwhelming rejection of Trump by the mainstream media, by many corporate elites, and even by significant elite figures in the Republican party.

Donald Trump won, despite being an unprecedentedly bad major party nominee for the Presidency, because Republican voters have had very consistent and solid turnout over the years despite a lack of a good field organization in 2016, and because Republican voters collectively and overwhelmingly decided to put their partisan allegiances above the failings of their particular candidate this year. 

In contrast, Democratic leaning voters are notoriously fickle and failed to turn out to vote for Hillary Clinton at previous levels, despite a par for the course field organization and more professional campaign management, because a large share of Democratic leaning voters were uninspired by her candidacy and do not have such unwaivering partisan loyalty.

The Electoral College Is Rigged In Favor Of Republicans

Trump's win also highlights the fact that under the current electoral college system, a Republican can lose to a Democrat in the popular vote by a non-trivial margin (about a million votes in 2016) and yet still win the electoral college. Basically, the current system is rigged in a way that requires the Democrat to win 52%-54% of the popular vote under reasonably normal circumstances, to win the Presidency.

Trump's Run Had No Coat Tails, But Clinton's Poor Performance Hurt Down Ticket Democrats

While Donald Trump had few coat tails in down ticket voting which saw Republicans lose a modest number of seats in both the House and the Senate, the poor Democratic turnout caused by Clinton's uninspiring campaign also denied Democrats the Congressional gains that they would have secured with a strong candidate (which looked like they might materialized even on the eve of the election).

Bad Polling Led To Bad Tactical Choices

It is also, of course, notable, the polling nationwide conducted by a great many firms, almost across the board, greatly underestimated the amount of support that Donald Trump had with likely voters for reasons that are still to be determined. This reduced the urgency of Democratic field operations and Democratic leaners felt need to vote, in states that turned out to be close but were not expected to be so close, and also led Clinton to misallocate campaign resources in the manner that she would have if she had had access to more accurate polling information.

Further Research

It will be worth the effort to look at turnout data more closely on a state by state basis in battleground states to discover the most important trends driving low Democratic turnout in 2016.

U.S. Voting Age Population (VAP)

2008: 229,945,000 (75.6% of a total population of approximately 304 million).
2016: 251,107,000 (77.5% of a total population of approximately 324 million).
Percentage change in voting age population +9.2% (total population increase +6.6%).

Election Results From 2008 And (Estimated) From 2016 

Votes Cast For Republican Nominee

McCain 2008: 59,948,323
Trump 2016: 61,496,079
Percentage change in votes cast for Republican nominee: +2.6%
Percentage change in share of VAP voting for Republican nominee: -6.0%

Votes Cast For Democratic Nominee

Obama 2008: 69,498,516
Clinton 2016: 62,830,751
Percentage change in votes cast for Democratic nominee: -9.6%
Percentage change in share of VAP voting for Republican nominee: -17.2%

This decline in turnout is despite an increased availability of early voting and mail-in ballots, initiatives to make it easier to register to vote in many states, and a significant number of pardons making former felons eligible to vote in Virginia between 2008 and 2016.

Immigration and Naturalization

An increase in foreign born individuals who are not naturalized citizens in the United States increase the total population of the United States and to the extent eighteen years of age or older, the voting age population of the United States, but not the number of eligible voters.

There were 39.9 million foreign born people in the United States in 2010 and 42.2 million foreign born people in the United States in 2014. There were probably about 38.7 million foreign born people in the United States in 2008 and 43.3 foreign born people in the United States in 2016.

In 2000, 40% of foreign born persons were U.S. citizens, while in 2010, 44% of foreign born persons were U.S. citizens. In 2014, 47.3% of foreign born persons were U.S. citizens. It is fair to estimate that in 2008, 43% of foreign born persons were U.S. citizens, while in 2016, 49% of foreign born persons were U.S. citizens.

This increase in the percentage of foreign born persons who are U.S. citizens in consistent with the fact that the foreign born population of the United States has increased by about 600,000 people per year for a total of about 4.8 million from 2008 to 2016, while there were 5,790,412 people naturalized as citizens in the United States in the 2009 through 2016 fiscal years (which end on September 30 of the year in question). So immigration net of deaths of foreign born persons and emigration of foreign born persons was exceeded by about 125,000 naturalizations per year.

As of 2014, 5.9% of foreign born persons in the United States (2.5 million persons) were under the age of eighteen. The other 10.5 million children are natural born citizens either because they were born in the U.S. or because one parent is a U.S. citizen. It isn't unreasonable to assume that this percentage hasn't changed much from 2008 to 2016.

Usually, when a parent is naturalized as a citizen, the minor foreign born children of the naturalized parent are made naturalized citizens at the same time as a matter of course.  So, the percentage of foreign born children who are not U.S. citizens in the United States is probably about the same as the overall percentage of foreign born persons who are not U.S. citizens.

The undocumented immigrant population has remained basically constant at about 11 million for the entire period from 2008 to 2016 (see this chart for the time period from 2008 to 2014). Thus, the increase in the foreign born population from 2008 to 2016 is essentially entirely attributable to legal immigration in that time period, reduced by deaths of foreign born persons (some of whom are naturalized citizens at death, and some of whom are not) and by persons who emigrated from the United States, in that time period after immigrating legally. Approximately 99% of deaths are of people who have reached voting age at the time of their death, but, if foreign born parents emigrate, their foreign born minor children will almost always emigrate with them. 

In 2010, 12.9% of the U.S. population was foreign born, up from 11.1% in 2000, 7.9% in 1990, 6.2% in 1980, and 4.7% in 1970.

But, foreign born persons in the United States are not distributed uniformly among the various states. 

As of 2010, some states had very high percentages of foreign born persons (California 27.2%, New York 22.2%, New Jersey 21.0%, Florida 19.4%, Nevada 18.8%, Hawaii 18.2%, Texas 16.4%, Massachusetts 15.0%); but some states have very low percentages of foreign born persons (West Virginia 1.2%, Montana 2.0%, Mississippi 2.1%, North Dakota 2.5%, South Dakota 2.7%, Wyoming 2.8%, Kentucky 3.2%, Maine 3.4%, Alabama 3.5%, Missouri 3.9%, Ohio 4.1%, New Hampshire 4.4%, Tennessee 4.5%, Arkansas 4.5%, Wisconsin 4.5%, Iowa 4.6%, Indiana 4.6%, South Carolina 4.7%).

Many of these states were not remotely close in the 2008 or 2016 elections. The only 2016 battleground states with above average percentages of foreign born persons were Florida, Nevada and Arizona (13.4%).

The following bottom line flows from this analysis:

U.S. Voting Age Citizens

2008: 209,195,000 (68.8% of a total population of approximately 304 million).

2016: 230,327,000 (71.1% of a total population of approximately 324 million).

Percentage change in number of voting age U.S. citizens +10.1% 

Felony Disenfranchisement

As of 2010, two U.S. states (Maine and Vermont) allowed people incarcerated in prison to vote.

All other states prohibit people incarcerated in prison from voting. Thirteen of these states permit people on parole or probation to vote. Five more of these states permit people on felony probation, but not people on parole to vote. Nineteen of these states bar voting by anyone incarcerated, on probation or on parole for a felony.

Another eleven of these states prohibit anyone with a felony criminal record from voting unless they are pardoned or formally have their civil rights restored. Subject to a couple notable and controversial episodes, pardons are rare and restorations of civil rights are quite uncommon. The eleven most restrictive states are: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming. But, in Arizona and Nevada only recidivist felons and in Nevada also violent felons are prohibited from voting.

Since Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Virginia are all sometimes swing states, felon disenfranchisement laws can have a material impact on election outcomes (and disproportionately affect minority communities who tend to vote Democratic).

In all, as of 2010, about 5.85 million felons were disenfranchised under these provisions, 45% because they were ex-felons living in one of these eleven states that bar them from voting, about 24% because they were incarcerated in prison, and about 31% because they were under correctional supervision but not in prison.

State level disenfranchisement rates in 2010 varied from less than .5 percent in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Utah (and zero in Maine and Vermont) to more than 7 percent in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia.

The felony disenfranchisement rate in Florida was more than 10% in 2010.

These figures show significant growth in recent decades, even as many states began to dismantle voting restrictions for formerly disenfranchised populations. . . .  [In 1980] far more of the nation had disenfranchisement rates below .5 percent and no state disenfranchised more than 5 percent of its adult citizens. 

The number of disenfranchised felons in the United States grew by 116,565 per year nationwide in the time period from 2000 to 2010.

Thus, there were about 5,617,000 disenfranchised felons in 2008, and if this trend continued at the same rate, about 6,550,000 disenfranchised felons in 2016.

U.S. Citizens Eligible To Vote

2008: 203,578,000 (67.0% of a total population of approximately 304 million).

2016: 223,777,000 (69.1% of a total population of approximately 324 million).

Percentage change in number of U.S. citizens eligible to vote +9.9% 

Election Results From 2008 And (Estimated) From 2016 

Votes Cast For Republican Nominee

McCain 2008: 59,948,323

Trump 2016: 61,496,079

Percentage change in votes cast for Republican nominee: +2.6%

Percentage change in share of eligible voters voting for Republican nominee: -6.7%

Votes Cast For Democratic Nominee

Obama 2008: 69,498,516

Clinton 2016: 62,830,751

Percentage change in votes cast for Democratic nominee: -9.6%

Percentage change in share of VAP voting for Republican nominee: -17.7%

Further Research

Three other things need to be considered to really appreciate the impact of reduced voter turnout on the 2016 election results.

First, the demographic makeup of eligible voters has changed over the last eight years. For the most part, the share of voters in demographic categories that tend to vote Democratic has grown, while the share of voters in demographic categories that tend to vote Republican has declined.

So, the -6.7% Republican turnout figure probably overstates the extent to which people likely to vote Republican either failed to vote or voted for a minor party candidate more in 2016 than they did in 2008, while the -17.7% Democratic turnout figure probably understates the extent to which people likely to vote Democratic either failed to vote or voted for a minor party candidate more in 2016 than they did in 2008. My gut estimate of the magnitude of these effects, before actually running the numbers, is that Republican leaner support for the GOP nominee was down more like 5%, while Democratic leaner support for the Democratic nominee was down more like 20%.

Second, the turnout trends are not uniform from state to state. For example, in Colorado, there has been a steady and substantial increase in voter turnout from 2008 to 2016. But, this has obviously not been true in other states. In part, this flows from population growth in some states, while other states have had low or stagnant population growth (something that reallocation of electoral college voters helps to address). But, this is also clearly not the whole story.

I don't have a great intuition about which states had worse than average Democratic turnout performance and better than average Republican turnout performance.

Third, due to the electoral college, overall voter turnout is more or less irrelevant to the results. What matters is voters turnout in battleground states. In states that are very safely red or very safely blue, turnout is more or less irrelevant in federal elections, and the same is true in safe Congressional seats. Any inquiry into the causes of the outcome of the 2016 election should focus on turnout changes in swing states.

A state by state analysis of turnout trends would allow for a more precise understanding of how low turnout cost Democrats the Presidency and control of the U.S .Senate in 2016, and would make it easier to discern the main causes of a decline in democratic turnout. Some of these may be related to voter suppression tactics and new election laws, some may be due to overconfidence, and some of this may be due to different levels of voter enthusiasm and voter reliability between the two major political parties.

Conclusion

Still, it certainly does seem, from this more than preliminary, but less than comprehensive view of the election, that lack of Democratic voter enthusiasm for their nominee relative to President Obama's first run for office, was a key factor suppressing Democratic leaner turnout.