Common
01-10-2015, 05:50 AM
If this is accurate then getting out the vote is far more important for democrats than any other factor.
The rich aren’t just megadonors. They’re also dominating the voting booth.
In 1986, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith declared, “If everybody in this country voted, the Democrats would be in for the next 100 years.” But for decades, the consensus among scholars and journalists has been the opposite. In their seminal 1980 study on the question, using data from 1972, political scientists Raymond Wolfinger and Steven Rosenstone argued that (http://www.amazon.com/Who-Votes-Yale-Fastback-Series/dp/0300025521) “voters are virtually a carbon copy of the citizen population.” In 1999, Wolfinger and his colleague Benjamin Highton again came to the same conclusion: “Outcomes would not change if everyone voted.” Their argument rested upon the fact that polling data did not show large differences in opinions on most issues between those who voted and those who did not.
However, a growing literature (http://www.demos.org/publication/why-voting-gap-matters) both within the United States and internationally suggests that, in fact, policy would change rather dramatically if everyone voted.
Does this mean that Galbraith was right all along? Not exactly. The reason for the recent shift in the findings is not that the early studies were wrong, but that the preferences of voters and nonvoters are becoming increasingly divergent. In a paper published in 2007 and later expanded into a 2013 book, Who Votes Now, political scientists Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler found (http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/nagler/leighley_nagler_midwest2007.pdf)that wide gaps between voters and nonvoters have opened up when it comes to class-based issues. They argued further that the seeds of these differences were apparent in earlier data, but Wolfinger and Rosenstone overlooked the gaps by focusing on broad ideological labels (liberal or conservative) rather than specific policies. Voters, Leighley and Nagler found, are more economically conservative; whereas non-voters favor more robust unions and more government spending on things like health insurance and public schools.
Other data collected on the national and state level support Leighley and Nagler’s thesis. A 2012 Pew survey (http://www.people-press.org/2012/11/01/nonvoters-who-they-are-what-they-think/) found that likely voters were split 47 percent to 47 percent between Obama and Romney while non-voters preferred Obama 59 percent to 24 percent, a 35 point margin. A 2006 Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) study found (http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/atissue/AI_906MBAI.pdf) that non-voters were more likely to support higher taxes and more government-funded services. They were also more likely to oppose Proposition 13 (a constitutional amendment which limits property taxes), dislike then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and support affordable housing.
It so happens that the gap between voters and non-voters breaks down strongly (http://www.demos.org/blog/10/30/14/how-reduce-voting-gap) along class lines. In the 2012 election, 80.2 percent of those making more than $150,000 voted, while only 46.9 percent of those making less than $10,000 voted. This “class bias,” is so strong that in the three elections (http://www.demos.org/publication/why-voting-gap-matters) (2008, 2010 and 2012) I examined, there was only one instance of a poorer income bracket turning out at a higher rate than the bracket above them. (In the 2012 election, those making less than $10,000 were slightly more likely to vote than those making between $10,000 and $14,999.) On average, each bracket turned out to vote at a rate 3.7 percentage points higher than the bracket below it.
This class bias is a persistent feature of American voting: A study (http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/sites/default/files/ssn_key_findings_franco_kelly_and_witko_on_class_b ias_in_voter_turnout.pdf)of 40 years of state-level data finds no instance in which there was not a class bias in the electorate favoring the rich—in other words, no instance in which poorer people in general turned out in higher rates than the rich. That being said, class bias has increased since (http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/nagler/apsa2006_rv7.pdf) 1988, just as wide gaps have opened up between the opinions of non-voters and those of voters.
Recent research tells us that this voting disparity—in class and in opinion—has tremendous impact on policy. State-level research suggests that higher voter turnout among the poor leads to higher welfare spending. A 2013 study found (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pop4.17/abstract) that turnout inequality directly predicts minimum wages, children’s health insurance spending and anti-predatory lending policies. And studies (http://www.salon.com/2014/11/02/russell_brand_is_wrong_voting_really_can_change_am erica_for_the_better/) at the state level have found that a higher class bias in the electorate actually leads to higher levels of income inequality.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/income-gap-at-the-polls-113997.html?hp=m2
The rich aren’t just megadonors. They’re also dominating the voting booth.
In 1986, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith declared, “If everybody in this country voted, the Democrats would be in for the next 100 years.” But for decades, the consensus among scholars and journalists has been the opposite. In their seminal 1980 study on the question, using data from 1972, political scientists Raymond Wolfinger and Steven Rosenstone argued that (http://www.amazon.com/Who-Votes-Yale-Fastback-Series/dp/0300025521) “voters are virtually a carbon copy of the citizen population.” In 1999, Wolfinger and his colleague Benjamin Highton again came to the same conclusion: “Outcomes would not change if everyone voted.” Their argument rested upon the fact that polling data did not show large differences in opinions on most issues between those who voted and those who did not.
However, a growing literature (http://www.demos.org/publication/why-voting-gap-matters) both within the United States and internationally suggests that, in fact, policy would change rather dramatically if everyone voted.
Does this mean that Galbraith was right all along? Not exactly. The reason for the recent shift in the findings is not that the early studies were wrong, but that the preferences of voters and nonvoters are becoming increasingly divergent. In a paper published in 2007 and later expanded into a 2013 book, Who Votes Now, political scientists Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler found (http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/nagler/leighley_nagler_midwest2007.pdf)that wide gaps between voters and nonvoters have opened up when it comes to class-based issues. They argued further that the seeds of these differences were apparent in earlier data, but Wolfinger and Rosenstone overlooked the gaps by focusing on broad ideological labels (liberal or conservative) rather than specific policies. Voters, Leighley and Nagler found, are more economically conservative; whereas non-voters favor more robust unions and more government spending on things like health insurance and public schools.
Other data collected on the national and state level support Leighley and Nagler’s thesis. A 2012 Pew survey (http://www.people-press.org/2012/11/01/nonvoters-who-they-are-what-they-think/) found that likely voters were split 47 percent to 47 percent between Obama and Romney while non-voters preferred Obama 59 percent to 24 percent, a 35 point margin. A 2006 Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) study found (http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/atissue/AI_906MBAI.pdf) that non-voters were more likely to support higher taxes and more government-funded services. They were also more likely to oppose Proposition 13 (a constitutional amendment which limits property taxes), dislike then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and support affordable housing.
It so happens that the gap between voters and non-voters breaks down strongly (http://www.demos.org/blog/10/30/14/how-reduce-voting-gap) along class lines. In the 2012 election, 80.2 percent of those making more than $150,000 voted, while only 46.9 percent of those making less than $10,000 voted. This “class bias,” is so strong that in the three elections (http://www.demos.org/publication/why-voting-gap-matters) (2008, 2010 and 2012) I examined, there was only one instance of a poorer income bracket turning out at a higher rate than the bracket above them. (In the 2012 election, those making less than $10,000 were slightly more likely to vote than those making between $10,000 and $14,999.) On average, each bracket turned out to vote at a rate 3.7 percentage points higher than the bracket below it.
This class bias is a persistent feature of American voting: A study (http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/sites/default/files/ssn_key_findings_franco_kelly_and_witko_on_class_b ias_in_voter_turnout.pdf)of 40 years of state-level data finds no instance in which there was not a class bias in the electorate favoring the rich—in other words, no instance in which poorer people in general turned out in higher rates than the rich. That being said, class bias has increased since (http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/nagler/apsa2006_rv7.pdf) 1988, just as wide gaps have opened up between the opinions of non-voters and those of voters.
Recent research tells us that this voting disparity—in class and in opinion—has tremendous impact on policy. State-level research suggests that higher voter turnout among the poor leads to higher welfare spending. A 2013 study found (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pop4.17/abstract) that turnout inequality directly predicts minimum wages, children’s health insurance spending and anti-predatory lending policies. And studies (http://www.salon.com/2014/11/02/russell_brand_is_wrong_voting_really_can_change_am erica_for_the_better/) at the state level have found that a higher class bias in the electorate actually leads to higher levels of income inequality.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/income-gap-at-the-polls-113997.html?hp=m2