Turnout Indicators Still Favor Democrats

Quite a lot has been written about the rise in Republican interest in voting this election. That is true, but it remains the case that turnout indicators for Democrats this cycle are still stronger than for Republicans. That is significant, breaking recent patterns and the underlying tendency of key Democratic constituencies toward low midterm turnout.

For example, the recent NBC/WSJ poll lists the top 5 groups by expressed interest in voting this election. They are seniors (+9 Democratic on the generic Congressional ballot), Democrats (+88 D), Latinos (+40 D), white college graduates (+19 D) and blacks (+70 D). The figures on seniors and white college graduates are especially worthy of note, since, as Nate Cohn has reported for the New York Times/Sienna polls, these voters appear poised to once again have a very disproportionate influence on the midterm electorate. Recall also that seniors have in recent cycles been quite a poor group for Democrats so the return of this high turnout group to the Democratic coalition is welcome news indeed (though oddly under-reported).