Low Democratic voter turnout has been blamed for the decisive Republican victory in Tuesday’s midterm elections. It has quickly become the scapegoat, even though the Democrats invested millions of dollars in an expansive effort to persuade young and nonwhite voters who do not usually participate in midterm election to head to the polls.
There is no question that turnout among core Democratic groups was lower in 2014 than it was in 2012 or even 2010. Many Democrats would have won if turnout had resembled a presidential election year. But Democrats also lost in states where turnout surpassed 2010, according to an Upshot analysis of preliminary returns and voter turnout data.
Virginia and Colorado illustrate the varied reasons for the impressive Republican performance on Tuesday. Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, found himself in a surprisingly tight race in Virginia, where turnout was unusually low. Yet Senator Mark Udall failed to win re-election in Colorado even though more Democrats voted than in 2010, when Democrats won a Senate seat.
Virginia is easier to understand. Turnout there was by far the lowest of any of the competitive races. Just 2.1 million votes have been counted in Virginia, or about 57 percent of the 3.9 million votes in the 2012 presidential election. No other competitive Senate contest had turnout beneath 64 percent of 2012 levels.
It is not hard to imagine why turnout was so low in Virginia: There was barely a race at all. The Republican, Ed Gillespie, didn’t even have the money to air television advertisements throughout October. Mr. Warner held a large lead in the polls, so the state was not a top target of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s turnout effort. Mr. Warner most likely would have won by a clear margin if turnout had been higher.
Yet in Colorado, Mr. Udall lost despite a better Democratic turnout than in 2010. So far, the state has tabulated 2.06 million ballots, or nearly 80 percent of the 2.57 million votes in the 2012 presidential election, according to an Upshot analysis of ballot tabulation data from the Colorado secretary of state. The turnout was nearly 300,000 votes higher than in 2010, when a strong Democratic turnout effort propelled Senator Michael Bennet to a come-from-behind victory.
The composition of the electorate was better for Democrats than it was four years ago. Registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats by 6.2 percentage points in 2010, but just 5.4 points on Tuesday. It was an electorate that President Obama probably would have won in 2012, since Democrats typically have a large advantage among the state’s unaffiliated voters.
Democrats anticipated that the state’s new mail voting system, combined with their strong turnout effort, would draw hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls. And it did: Thirty percent of Colorado voters did not participate in 2010, and they were registered Democrats by a one-point margin.
But Mr. Udall still lost. He certainly garnered less support than Mr. Bennet, and probably Mr. Obama, among unaffiliated voters. The results by county suggest he underperformed among Hispanic voters as well.
Mr. Udall might have won if the electorate more closely resembled the one that re-elected Mr. Obama in 2012, when registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats by two points. The same story might also be true in North Carolina, where Senator Kay Hagan lost by two points with an older and whiter electorate than the one that Mr. Obama lost by two points in 2012.
There were other states where turnout would not have helped the Democrats. In Iowa, where Joni Ernst, a Republican, defeated Bruce Braley, a Democrat, by a decisive eight-point margin, it is hard to argue that Republicans won by the margin of turnout. Turnout was very high in the Southern battleground states, too, and there is not much question that the Republicans would have won in Georgia, Kentucky and Arkansas in a presidential election year.
Now, both parties have to figure out if they have the support it takes to win in 2016.