At 10:42 AM 11/5/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: >> 3. The traditional Democratic argument has been that a >> high turnout election would result in a Democratic >> victory - that supposedly there was an unvoting >> majority in the US that supports the Democratic Party. >> There is, quite literally, no empirical evidence to >> support this belief, and there never has been. > >It may not be as true now, but it was pretty well established by empirical >data in the past. One always noted about a 4%-6% increase/decrease in the >spread (whichever favors the Republicans when the polling switched from >adult Americans to likely voters. This switch usually happened after the >conventions.
Dan - I'm honestly not sure that I follow your comments.... Are you referring to the usual Republican boost in "likely voter" screens as opposed to "registered voter" or "adult" polls? As for Gautam's point, I think that there is a solid empirical basis for this belief. First of all, we know that turnout among certain Democratic-leaning demographics, i.e. the poor, minorities, etc. tends to lag the national average. Furthermore, Republicans have done very well in some recent off-year, low-turnout elections, particularly 2002 and 1994. JDG _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
