The Illinois primary election took place yesterday. I served as an election judge in our local precinct. I'd like to share an observation regarding people's passion - or lack thereof.
What I observed was a palpable lack of enthusiasm compared to the precinct's prior primary election day in 2022. Generally speaking, presidential election years get bigger voter turnouts than so-called off-year elections. But that wasn't the case in my precinct yesterday. I see, from my post about the 2022 Illinois primary, that we had attracted about 250 voters to our precinct that day. Our count yesterday was only 159. That's a 36% decrease in voters.
Those hard numbers are reinforced by what I observed - or didn't observe. The 2022 primary took place just a few days after the Dobbs decision was promulgated, ending the federal right to abortion. That day in 2022, our precinct saw a steady stream of young and middle-age women coming in to vote, and many of them had the glint of battle in their eye. As I noted in that previous post, nearly all of them asked for Democratic ballots that day. Some remarked to me that they were disappointed to discover that Donald Trump wasn't on the Democratic ballot (it's surprising how many voters don't fully understand the difference between a primary election and a general election), because they really wanted to vote against him. While abortion wasn't on the ballot that day, abortion drove a big electoral turnout.
The women-with-steely-glint vote was largely MIA yesterday. My observation is, the seniors showed up yesterday about as much as they usually do, but the younger voters didn't.
In my view, that women voters were MIA yesterday is bad news for Joe Biden. Young people don't seem to cotton to him. And the Democratic Party is relying on abortion-related anger to motivate voters to go to the polls. If people's passions on the abortion issue are dissipating, then Democrats are going to have to develop some new issues.
To be sure: even though this is a presidential election year, there was no compelling presidential reason for voters to show up yesterday: the presidential candidates for both major parties already have locked up the nominations. Nor are there any statewide races this year. In addition, Illinois has both early voting and mail-in voting, and both have been increasing in popularity in recent years. So yesterday's observations may not sketch the complete picture of this precinct's electorate.
What's more, I also didn't see as much Trump passion as I saw in 2020, when people who literally didn't know how to vote came out to cast a ballot for Trump while ignoring all the down-ballot races. My sense is that both sides are struggling to get their people to the polls.
A race to elect the oldest US president at time of election will excite no one, neither the young people, nor the elderly.
ReplyDeleteThe abortion issue is not likely to affect the outcome of the presidential race directly. Trump can certainly point to his record on nominating conservative justices who overturned Roe. Conservative who now have second thoughts about the unintended consequences of that can hardly blame Trump. I doubt many Republicans who are worried about too strict abortion laws will vote for Biden.
Who (including Trump) knows what Trump will do with the issue of a Republican Congress that passes a strict law against abortion.
Probably depends on how Congress is getting alone with him on other issues.
Indirectly however abortion could play a big role in Senate and Congressional races. Moreno, Trump’s hand-picked Senate candidate won the primary here in Ohio. The Democrats are so happy. They urged people to vote for Moreno rather than the moderate candidate endorsed by DeWine.
The Plain Dealer said:
“Moreno, a former luxury car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur, has described himself as “100% pro-life no exceptions,” During the primary campaign, he said he would favor the federal government imposing restrictions on abortions at 15 weeks, with “commonsense restrictions,” -- limits that would substantially counter Ohio voters’ decision in November to enshrine in the state constitution an individual's right to make their own reproductive decisions.
Moreno took heat from the LaRose campaign for being “weak on life,” because Moreno sat on the Cleveland Foundation’s board during a period when the nonprofit donated $1.9 million to Planned Parenthood.”
Voters in Ohio may choose to reject Moreno in favor of the incumbent Democrat who is well known. That may put Ohio in jeopardy for Trump. He should fear all those Republican women, who were concerned about what the Ohio Senate and House Republicans might do on abortion, might equally be concerned about what a Republican controlled House and Senate might do under a Trump presidency. The Republican women who have these concerns may not be willing to admit in the polls leading up to election. So, Ohio might be a surprise on election night even though Trump thinks it is in his hands.
Michael Sean Winters had a good piece in NCR yesterday about why Democrats shouldn't overplay their hand on abortion.
ReplyDeleteIn a nutshell:
"What the Biden campaign needs to recognize is that abortion is totemic. For some people it represents all that is wrong about the sexual revolution and its progeny, and they are base GOP voters. For others, the libertarian stance on abortion is the only possible way to recognize women's rights, and they constitute part of the Democratic base. Americans in the center, the people who will decide the election, are not comfortable with either extreme. "
Here is the link to the article:
Deletehttps://www.ncronline.org/opinion/ncr-voices/democrats-shouldnt-overplay-their-hand-abortion