I know I’m in danger of beating a dead horse here, but I have to make one more point about youth turnout. John Kerry would have lost the popular vote even if every single citizen between the ages of 18 and 29 had voted–a completely unreasonable expectation. Assume that all 40.7 million under-30s had participated, and they had voted in the same proportions that actual young voters did last week: i.e., 54% for Kerry vs. 44% for Bush. Then John Kerry would have received a boost of 1,927,000 votes, net. (There would have been roughly 10.4 million more votes for Kerry, but also approximately 8.47 million more for Bush.) In reality, the Democratic ticket lost the popular vote by 3,510,358. Therefore, even with 100% turnout among the 18-29s, Kerry would have lost the election by 1.58 million votes.

Moral: youth turnout wasn’t the problem for Democrats. They lost because Americans preferred the Republican ticket in ’04.

We’ve had a wild week at CIRCLE. Many early news stories claimed that youth turnout was 17% (for under-30s) or 10% (for under-25s). Many reporters and pundits (especially on TV) concluded that just one in ten young people had participated. Academic experts were fed that number and asked to comment; they opined sagely about the fecklessness of youth. In fact, these statistics represent young people’s share of the electorate. Turnout–which means the percentage of young citizens who voted–was 52% for under 30s and 42.3% for under 25s. In other words, more than half of people under the age of 30 voted, reversing more than 12 years of decline and surpassing all reasonable expectations. Their share was unchanged from 2000 because all age groups voted at higher rates, although the change for young people was proportionately higher (the same percentage-point change on a smaller base).

We struggled hard to change the dominant news story, and began to succeed by the end of the week. Just for instance, I’m quoted in today’s Washington Post as part of a positive and accurate story. Meanwhile, we have been able to conduct more fine-grained analysis. According to a fact sheet that we released this morning (see pdf):

There are still people saying that Kerry lost because young people didn’t turn out for him. For instance, Bob Herbert speculates that the Democrats would have won if “those younger voters had actually voted. …” We are a nonpartisan organization, and our concern is youth participation, not helping Democrats. However, I would say this to the Dems: 1) Young people did turn out. 2) They chose Kerry by a fairly narrow margin, as everyone’s pre-election polling had predicted. After all, they are politically diverse. 3) All older groups preferred Bush. So blaming young people for failing to vote just won’t wash.

Until 1913, with the passage of the 17th Amendment, Senators were selected by state legislatures. Since there was widespread corruption and class bias in state governments, Senators tended to be millionaires or puppets of specific corporations. The House of Representatives, however, was directly elected and much more accountable. It was the “People’s House.”

Today, the situation is almost precisely reversed. The Senate is imperfect because its “districts”–the states–vary enormously in size. Alaska has the same number of seats as California. However, Senate races are often competitive and unpredictable; Senators must pay attention to the voters or they can easily be defeated. In contrast, House districts are completely uncompetitive, thanks to the way state legislatures have drawn the maps. Indeed, according to the Center for Voting and Democracy:

The House of Representatives has reached a breathtaking level of non-competitiveness. More than 95% of seats were won by margins of more than 10%–a record. Only four incumbents outside of Texas [where the districts were redrawn] didn’t win by at least 4%, and only three were defeated. The House has changed partisan control only once since 1954–and unless Republicans suffer major setbacks in the 2006 midterm election, it almost certainly won’t change hands anytime soon.

In short, the House election was over many months ago, as soon as the state legislatures finished selecting who would serve. How depressing that we should have less direct democracy in the House than 100 years ago. It’s time for a reform as bold as the 17th Amendment.

1) The election from a civic perspective

Viewed from a nonpartisan, little-?d? democratic perspective, this election had good points and bad ones. On the negative side, the candidates failed to discuss many of the most important issues facing the nation, from Guantanamo to urban poverty. Many of their proposals (especially Bush?s, but also Kerry?s) didn?t add up, so the public was asked to choose between two platforms that could not possibly be implemented as advertised. There were many negative, personal, and utterly irrelevant claims and messages.

On the bright side, the turnout was huge?better than any year since 1968. To get all those people to vote, the parties mobilized a huge number of volunteers at the grassroots level. There is a lot of latent political energy in that pool of people. The parties are going to be accountable to them and to the much larger base of donors who now fund politics. These activists may be more ideological and polarized than average Americans, but I think that?s OK. They are participating in democracy. (And the logic of the median-voter theorem will exert pressure on the parties to move to the center).

Furthermore, I didn?t notice racist or racially divisive rhetoric. I may have missed it?in which case, please tell me. However, I think Republicans mobilized conservative whites not by appealing to racist motives but by stressing social issues on which many African Americans also hold conservative values. This doesn?t mean that our political leaders have suddenly become enlightened about race or that the second Bush administration will be good for African Americans. It does mean that society has become relatively less racist, to the extent that it now pays to court Black voters rather than use racist rhetoric to drive up white turnout. And that?s a good sign.

2) The election from a progressive perspective

From a progressive perspective, the election was a disaster. An incumbent with a truly weak record and low approval ratings won the popular vote by a healthy margin. I did not predict the outcome; I thought it would be close and Kerry had better odds of winning. However, I have been worried since last winter that Democrats were not interested in developing a positive agenda, consisting of a set of policy proposals united by a broad philosophy of some kind. Instead, they seemed content to attack George Bush. If John Kerry had been elected president, he would have been the first progressive president in American history to have won simply because the previous incumbent messed up. No one would have known what he stood for.

Very soon, an angry debate will begin as segments of the Democratic Party and progressive organizations fight about who?s at fault and how to proceed. Here?s my advice:

No excuses. The Republicans didn?t outspend the Democrats by much. They weren?t bailed out by the Electoral College or voting irregularities. They didn?t win because Democrats stayed home. In fact, they didn?t get many lucky breaks at all. Conceivably, the news media helped them a bit, but overall the reporting was damaging?not deliberately biased against the Republicans, but full of embarrassing and troubling stories about the administration and its policies. So the Republicans won by putting forward a more appealing package of candidates and policies than the Democrats did. The only way for Democrats to win in ’06 and ’08 is to improve their package, starting with policies.

Don?t root against America. It?s going to be very tempting to hope for defeat in Iraq and serious economic problems, such as a balance-of-payment crisis. But it?s wrong to hope for the country to suffer, and people can smell that hope from far away. Besides, Democrats need to win by articulating a positive vision. If they count on Bush to fail, they will not have the discipline to develop an agenda of their own.

Ideological ?positioning? isn?t the issue. Moderates will say that Democrats need to move to the right to pick up middle-of-the-road voters. Liberals will say that the Party needs to move left to provide a clearer alternative. Sometimes, this debate is useful. Not this time. Neither moderates nor liberals have compelling lists of great policy ideas that hang together coherently. What we need are good proposals; we can then combine the liberal ones with the moderate ones, or choose among them on an issue-by-issue basis.

Starting with an AP story late last night and blog posts by Daily Kos and Josh Marshall [but see below for his change of mind], the story has been going around that youth didn’t turn out. Some are saying that Kerry lost because the youth vote failed to materialize. This is flatly false–and offensive. From CIRCLE’s release:

Youth Turnout Up Sharply in 2004

Many more young people cast votes yesterday than in 2000, and a far higher proportion of young people voted. Youth turnout was especially strong in contested, ?battleground? states.

According to final national exit polls and an early tally of votes cast, at least 20.9 million Americans under the age of 30 voted in 2004, an increase of 4.6 million compared to 2000. (The 20.9 million figure will increase as more ballots are tallied.) The percentage of eligible young people who voted also increased, from about 42.3% to approximately 51.6% yesterday. This percentage is the turnout rate, and it is up sharply?by 9.3 percentage points?since 2000.

?This is phenomenal. It represents the highest youth turnout in more than a decade, 4 percentage points higher than the previous peak year of 1992,? said CIRCLE Director William A. Galston.

Because young people participated in considerably larger numbers than they had in the past, they kept pace with the higher turnout of Americans of all ages. Voters under the age of 30 constituted the same proportion of all voters as they did in 2000 (about 18%) even as overall voting increased.

Young people voted at a much higher rate in contested, ?battleground? states. In the ten most contested states, youth turnout was 64%, up 13 percentage points from 2000. In the battleground states, the youth share of the electorate was 19%. In the remaining 40 states and the District of Columbia, youth turnout was 47% and the youth share of the electorate was 18%. One explanation for the higher rates of participation in the battleground states is that there was greater voter outreach and political advertising in these states. Current research shows that youth participate when they are asked to do so.

Young people chose the Democratic ticket of Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards over Republicans George W. Bush and Dick Cheney by a 54%-44% margin, according to national exit polls. They were the only age group to prefer the Democrats.

Update: Josh Marshall has graciously corrected his criticism of youth (possibly because I emailed him late last night, although others probably contacted him too.)