A friend of mine sent me the following article to dispute an earlier post I wrote.
Here’s the excerpt I want to highlight.
Nationwide, there are about 42 million registered Democrats and about 31 million Republicans, according to statistics compiled by The Associated Press.
The Democrats have posted big gains in many competitive states, including Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Florida. They have also been targeting historically Republican southern states.
Hmmm…
That’s a huge difference, a difference of 11 million voters.
Americans in da house, what do you guys think? Historically, has there ever been such a big difference in the numbers of registered voters in both parties?
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=727
The answer to your question is… pretty much all the time in the past 40 years. The Democrats always lead in terms of registered Democrats, it would seem, but not when it comes to actual results.
This was a message courtesy of your local google-expert.
I think that there have always been a difference like this. Democrats have more popular support generally, however Republicans are more likely to actually go to the polls and vote.
During the last US Presidential election in 2004, 55 percent of eligible voters went to vote. In 2000 it was 51 percent.
Democrats and Democratically leaning independents tend to be younger, they are less likely to have fundamentalist religious beliefs, and many of them are ineligible to vote for a variety of reasons. Republicans and Republican leaning independents on the other had tend to be older, they usually are more fundamentalist in their beliefs (both religiously and politically) and are less likely to accept viewpoints other than their own. Also, I believe that the numbers you mention are misleading in some ways - I think that there are many more people who vote Republican exclusively, but who are not actually members of the Republican party, than there are Democratically exclusive voters who aren’t actually Democrats. Then you have smaller parties out there who usually turn Republican at the last minute. A lot of members of the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party, and other smaller groups will vote McCain over Obama. Green Party members will, of course, vote Obama.
What this always adds up to is the mismatch you mention in your original post. In the US, whichever party is more conservative will have the edge nine out of ten times.
This is more like a wishful thinking on the part of Democrats. Incidentally, the same situation is developing in Israel. Recent polls were very clear about it
Looks like I messed the link. Another try
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