New York Times writer, Michael Cooper examines the myths that plague midterm election analyses, particularly regarding voter’s views on “Big Government” and how Tuesday’s turnout relates to historical voting trends.
The 2010 exit polls, Cooper writes, find voters divided on government and public spending, rather than rallying behind the call to end “Big Government.” Not much has changed in the last two years as these same outlooks were given in our recent poll of 2008 voters. Cooper writes:
“But American voters rarely speak with an unambiguous voice. Consider the question of so-called Big Government, which, if exit polls are to be believed, voters have contradictory feelings about. A majority agreed that the government was doing too many things that are better left to businesses and individuals. But voters were fairly evenly divided on what many Republicans made Exhibit A in their case that the Obama administration had overreached: the new health care law. The exit polls found that 47 percent of voters said Congress should leave the law as it is or expand it, and that 48 percent said Congress should repeal it. Not exactly a ringing mandate for repeal.
Voters were also divided on questions of taxing and spending. When people were asked what the highest priority of the next Congress should be, 37 percent said ‘spending to create jobs,’ which was only slightly behind the 39 percent who said ‘reducing the budget deficit.’ And only four in 10 voters said they wanted Congress to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for everyone, including families who earn more than a quarter of a million dollars a year, as the Republicans want to do.”
Cooper also addresses the complaint that young voters were not mobilized this year, compared to their overwhelming increase in turnout in 2008: “Young voters did make up a decidedly smaller portion of the electorate this year: 11 percent, down from 18 percent in 2008, when many turned out for the presidential election. But their turnout this year was not much different from their turnout in the last midterm elections, in 2006, when 12 percent of the voters were under 30.”
“Young voters are among the most transient and tend to sit out midterm elections,” he writes. “This year was no different.”
Read more from Project Vote on voters’ views of “Big Government” here and midterm election myths here.