A long-standing piece of political folk wisdom says that when more people vote, Democrats win, because younger, lower-income and minority citizens who lean Democratic are less likely to vote. A 2014 post on this domain’s former site argued a version of it, and a Skeptics Stack Exchange thread later asked whether the claim held up. The evidence says: not reliably.
What researchers have found
Political scientists have tested the idea for decades. In The Turnout Myth (2020), Daron Shaw and John Petrocik examined presidential, Senate and gubernatorial elections over many decades and found no consistent relationship between turnout levels and which party wins. One reason is that occasional voters are not reliably partisan: they tend to be less attached to either party and more swayed by the conditions of a particular year, like the economy or a scandal.
What recent elections show
- 2014: Midterm turnout was the lowest in decades, and Republicans won the Senate. That fit the folk theory.
- 2018: Midterm turnout was the highest in a century, and Democrats won the House.
- 2020: Turnout was the highest share of eligible voters since 1900. Democrats won the presidency, but Republicans gained House seats.
- 2024: Turnout stayed high by historical standards, and Republicans won the presidency, helped by gains among lower-propensity voters.
The pattern of the 2020s, in which infrequent voters have leaned more Republican in several contests, has made campaigns on both sides rethink who benefits from turning out new voters.
Why the myth persists
The groups that vote less often do, on average, lean Democratic in surveys. But turnout surges are not drawn evenly from those groups, and the same forces that drive turnout up, like an energized opposition, also shift how existing voters choose. Turnout is a result of the political environment as much as a cause of the outcome.
Where to find the numbers
The University of Florida’s Election Lab (formerly the U.S. Elections Project) publishes turnout as a share of eligible voters, which is more accurate than share of the voting-age population because it excludes non-citizens and, in many states, people with felony convictions. The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey reports who voted by age, race and income after each federal election.