WASHINGTON — Voter turnout will be the highest in decades, dwarfing recent presidential elections, experts predict.
The only question dividing experts is how huge it will be. Will it be the largest since 1968, largest since 1960, or even, as one expert predicts, the largest in a century? Soaring early-voting levels hint at a big turnout, but that could just be the same voters casting ballots earlier instead of more voters hitting the polls.
What early-voting numbers mean and how much of the youth and Latino votes turn out are the big factors political scientists look at when trying to predict how many eligible Americans will vote.
Michael McDonald of George Mason University is predicting the highest level in a century.
“We’re going to definitely beat the turnout rate in 2004 — the question is by how much,” McDonald said. “We have a chance to beat the 1960 turnout rate. . . . It’s not just an election of a generation, it’s an election of generations with an ‘s.’ ”
He’s not alone. The dean of voting-turnout predictions, Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, last week amped up his turnout forecast. Initially he said it would be around 2004 levels, but now he is looking at a turnout that would be the highest since 1960.
“It’s driven by 90 percent of the American people thinking the country is on the wrong track,” Gans said Friday. “The only question is how many Republicans are not going to show up.”
John McCain’s campaign released a strategy memo last week saying that “turnout is going to go through the roof” and predicting that more than 130 million people would vote.
And Barack Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, on Friday said, “We think turnout is going to be higher than that” but wouldn’t give a number. Four years ago, 122.3 million people voted for president.
McDonald predicts 64 percent of the eligible voters will cast ballots. That’s more than 2004’s 60.1 percent and a hair above 1960’s post-World War II high of 63.8 percent. The high for the 20th century, using McDonald’s calculations, was 65.7 percent in 1908 when William Howard Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan.
High voter turnouts
Percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots:
2004: 60.1 percent, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry
1960: 63.8 percent, John Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon
1908: 65.7 percent, William Howard Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan
