Marginal voters likely deserted the Democrats in November



Photo by DB King

 Marginal voters include those who hardly ever vote and those who are voting for the first time. These folks helped to award the Democrats 21 House seats and 8 Senate seats in 2008. They stayed home in 2010, according to a pre-election projection by American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate. Participation in a history-making election was just as important in 2010 as 2008 when Barack Obama was elected President. Just for the other side.

Turnout in the 2006 midterms was 40 percent, with a small improvement in 2010 to 41.5 percent. What’s worse, the most marginal of the marginals are the ages of 18 to 24 who voted 2 to 1 for Obama. Between 22 and 24 million in that age range voted in 2008, but normally seem to lose interest in the midterms. Who knows what actually happened but along with losing the younger vote, plus Hispanics and gays, apparently the Dems didn’t have a chance.

Read more here, here and here.