Polling News

Voters Who Stayed Home

January 12, 2017

Registered voters who stayed home in November likely cost Hillary Clinton the election, according to FiveThirtyEight.com’s analysis of a post-election SurveyMonkey poll.  Thirty-five percent of self-identified Democrats and 33% of self-identified Independents said they did not vote.  Both groups were more likely to support Mrs. Clinton while a smaller 32% of self-identified Republicans said they stayed home.  

Even more damaging to Mrs. Clinton was poor turnout among non-white voters, a critical block of the “Obama Coalition” her campaign counted on replicating.  Non-white voters accounted for just 25% of those who said they voted on Election Day, but were a whopping 42% of voters who stayed home.  Young non-white voters were especially likely to stay home.  Of white voters who did not vote, 30% were 18-29 years old.  By comparison, 43% of Hispanic non-voters and 46% of black non-voters were 18-29. 

Why did these voters stay home?  They said they didn’t like the candidates.  As FiveThirtyEight.com points out, many of these should have voted for Mrs. Clinton; if they had, she would likely have won but her campaign failed to give them a reason to do so.

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