The tight race for Wisconsin governor will be decided not by how many people vote but who votes

The common wisdom in politics is that higher turnout helps Democrats.

But could the opposite be true this fall in Wisconsin?

Could lower turnout — meaning fewer people voting — improve the Democrats’ odds of knocking off GOP Gov. Scott Walker?

And could higher turnout be good for Walker?

That notion defies a widely held truism about modern politics, but it has some basis in recent polling.

It’s also one of the many key unknowns about a question at the core of every competitive election cycle: who will actually vote this fall?

“It’s such a wild card,” said political scientist David Canon of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referring to turnout trends in the Donald Trump era and the shifting motivation levels of voting groups on each side as they react to events (like the Supreme Court confirmation fight over Brett Kavanaugh) and the president’s lightning-rod rhetoric.  

Higher turnout is usually thought of as helpful to Democrats because some Democratic-leaning groups vote at lower rates, most notably young people and minorities.

Gauging enthusiasm

But in his most recent Marquette Law School poll, Charles Franklin found evidence that higher turnout could in one sense be a positive for Republicans.

How? The short answer is the “enthusiasm gap.” Democrats are showing more intensity about this election.

“What we’re seeing now is a bit of a Democratic enthusiasm edge,” said Franklin.   

In a small-turnout scenario, only the most enthusiastic voters are voting, a group that right now skews toward Democrats. But as the electorate expands to include slightly less energized voters, that advantage is diminished.

One way to think about this in geographic terms is that Dane County and Madison are expected by both sides to vote in droves for Democrats because of their high-turnout history and pent-up anger over Walker and Trump. It’s practically a given. But the landslide margins for Evers that region generates will have a bigger impact on the election if overall turnout statewide is on the low side rather than the high side.   

When Franklin used his polling data to simulate different turnout scenarios, he found that Walker’s share of the vote (47%) didn’t change. But Evers’ share ranged from 43% to 48%. His vote was higher under smaller-turnout scenarios limited to the most enthusiastic and engaged voters, and lower under high-turnout scenarios that included less enthusiastic and less engaged voters.

Franklin cites at least two potential explanations for this.

One is the enthusiasm gap that currently favors Democrats, a gap that has more impact in a lower-turnout election. 

Another is that Evers’ name recognition is much higher among more engaged voters. It drops among more casual voters. (By contrast, Walker is familiar to almost all voters). So that pattern could hurt Evers in a higher-turnout election that includes more voters who follow politics less closely.  

“When you tighten the electorate to the most likely voters, a smaller group that is more informed and more involved, on balance that helps the guy who is less known,” said Franklin.

Ken Goldstein, another political scientist who has studied polling and political data about the Wisconsin electorate, also thinks higher turnout could help Walker and lower turnout help Evers in some scenarios.

“Usually lower turnout benefits Republicans, and as turnout gets higher, Democrats do better. Here that’s not the case,” said Goldstein, a former professor at the UW-Madison who is now on the faculty at the University of San Francisco.

“If I were an Evers person, I’d be happy because the people whom I’m most confident about voting, I’m winning with. If I were a Walker person, I’d say (that) even though my voters are less enthusiastic and a little bit lower down on intensity ... at the end of the day, because it is a fairly high turnout state with habitual voters, I would assume that even if people are unenthusiastic, they’re (still) voters. And an unenthusiastic vote counts as much as an enthusiastic vote.”   

The past three contests for governor illustrate how turnout can vary from election to election. In the last midterm election in 2014, Wisconsin had the second-highest turnout in the nation. About 55% of voting-age adults (2.4 million people) turned out. In the 2012 June recall, roughly 57% (more than 2.5 million people) turned out. In the 2010 midterm, about 50% (under 2.2 million) turned out. Of these three examples, 2010 and 2014 are the most comparable to 2018 because they were November midterm elections, not a June special election driven by a blistering recall fight.

The right mix  

Experts will tell you that it's not just about how many people vote, but who votes. Democrats worry about turning out parts of their coalition that often vote at much lower levels in midterms compared to presidential years, including young people, Latinos and African-Americans. While turnout in very blue Madison is robust in midterm cycles, turnout in very blue Milwaukee’s isn’t.  

Republicans have their own worries. Their voters are expressing less enthusiasm about this election. And the GOP is slowly relying more and more on the votes of non-college voters, who tend to vote at lower rates than people with college degrees.

So, a large midterm turnout could be good for either side, depending on its composition. It could mean that less reliable or less energized GOP voters are turning out in higher- than-expected numbers, offsetting a Democratic enthusiasm edge. But it also could mean that Democrats are doing a good job turning out millennials and minorities.    

It’s less about “aggregate” turnout, said Goldstein, than “differential” turnout.  

Different takes 

We asked political strategists from both parties for their thoughts on how turnout might affect the race for governor, which is the most competitive major election contest in Wisconsin this fall, according to most public polls.

Here is what they had to say.

“More turnout is always better for us, because their people always vote,” said Democratic strategist Tanya Bjork, referring to Republican voters in Wisconsin and the GOP’s track record of turning out its base.

“Our base voters don’t always turn out. Their base voters always do,” said Bjork, who believes this time Democratic voters are more mobilized than usual, erasing the turnout edge Republicans have enjoyed in recent midterms. Bjork also downplayed Evers’ lack of name recognition, saying that more casual voters will know enough about Evers by election day to vote for him.  

“Traditionally higher turnout helps Democrats — with one notable exception. And that was the recall in 2012 (when) higher turnout greatly helped Scott Walker,” said GOP consultant Bill McCoshen. McCoshen said that demonstrates that Walker can win a high-turnout election.

“He has the built the best turnout operation ever built in Wisconsin. He knows who his voters are. And if he can turn them out, then a high-turnout election is not a problem for him,” he said.  

Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said:

“We’ve gone from low turnouts that helped Republicans in 2010 and 2014 to high turnouts that helped Democrats in 2008-'12. And then two slightly different turnouts in the recall election(in 2012) and in 2016 that ultimately helped the Republicans. This year it may be that the lower the turnout, the better it is for Democrats, who are the aggrieved party. And the higher the turnout, the better it is for Republicans. But it might also fall in between. ... In the Trump era, we really don’t know much of anything until votes are actually counted.”

GOP pollster Gene Ulm said there are some important nuances when it comes to the turnout factors in this election.

“The facts are that voter anger does drive turnout and it is 'base' Democrats that are angry,” said Ulm.

But he said that factor is often overstated compared to the importance of long-standing demographic turnout patterns, including how turnout tends to rise with age, wealth, education levels and homeownership. On balance, those attributes have been associated with a more Republican electorate (though college-educated voters now increasingly skew Democratic).      

“In ’10 and ’14, the GOP benefited from two-fers,” Ulm said. “Not only were (Republicans) angry, but they also had (those) structural dynamics on their side. And the effects were almost exponential.”

This year, it is more of a mixed bag, because Democrats belong to the disgruntled party out of power.   

“In 2018, the GOP will have its structural dynamics" favoring turnout, said Ulm. “However, the Democrats will have anger-dynamics.”