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Skaje's avatar

Missed yesterday's continuation of the long running discussion on low propensity vs high propensity voters, whether good or bad turnout is better for Dems these days, etc. A nuance I think gets missed sometimes is that turnout is not just a sliding scale that will deliver a fixed result depending where it lands. I think objectively in 2024 Democrats suffered from poorer base turnout than 2020, but at the same time Republicans hit and may have even exceeded their 2020 turnout (which was already quite high, but just swamped by Democrats plus Gary Johnson or Trump voters that flipped to Biden). So in 2024 we would have preferred for higher turnout among Dems, but lower turnout among Republicans. I don't think it's a given that lower 2024 turnout would have been immediately better for us (could have come from even greater Dem dropoff) or that higher 2024 turnout would have meant a GOP landslide (Republicans might have been close to maxed out).

But yes the pattern is clear that with *very* low turnout (like the OH-06 special we got within single digits) that partisan engaged Democrats made up a disproportionate share and dropoff hit Republicans harder, so it would not shock me to see this dynamic continue for WI-Supreme Court and other races. Another note: trying to parse early vote statistics remains murky at best in states with partisan voter registration; in a state without it like Wisconsin, good luck. County comparisons don't tell you who's turning out in those counties.

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MPC's avatar
Mar 21Edited

Durbin needs to retire. Have a 30-40 year old replace him in the Senate with fire in their belly.

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