As reported by pollsters, the 2022 primaries have shown that Republicans are seeing an insanely huge advantage in regards to turnout.
As seen in the primary elections held on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, and Idaho, Republicans made up around 54.9% of to the total votes cast, as reported by the founder of the polling firm JMC Analytics, John Couvillon. When taking into account the other five states that have already concluded their primaries — Texas, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, and West Virginia, Republicans climb to well over 60% of the total votes cast in the primaries overall.
“In every state where I’ve been measuring turnout changes relative to previous midterms, I’m seeing a clear advantage on the Republican side,” stated Coulvillon on Wednesday in comments to the New York Post. Couvillon added that the data set was “not super representative,” because of the fact that it was only from a set of 10 states that held early primaries, and also the fact that there are a total of 174 days left before the general elections. Despite those precautions, the data from these primaries seem to suggest that “states that are swinging and are Republican are going to move far to the right,” he claimed.
Couvillon also put forth part of his data via Twitter this past Wednesday. As seen in the data, overall turnout in the 10 states that have already concluded their primaries was marked as a 21% uptake from back in 2018, which he highlighted was an extremely high turnout year by itself. However, a partisan breakdown highlighted this massive advantage for Republicans. So far, the turnout for Democrats tallied up to be just under five million votes, while the Republican side managed to cast well over 7.5 million. Additionally, Democratic turnout went up by a measly 3% compared to 2018, while their Republican counterparts sport a 38% increase in turnout in the same timeframe.
PARTISAN PRIMARY TURNOUT, 2022 v 2018
Now we have a sample of 10 states.
Overall turnout up 21% (and 2018 was a high turnout year); Dem turnout +3%, Rep turnout +38%
The Republican % of the vote went from 53 to 60% of the electorate.
(1/2) pic.twitter.com/LIAdThNEtx— John Couvillon (@WinWithJMC) May 18, 2022
Democratic turnout was reported to be down across five states when compared to 2018: 49% in West Virginia; 39% in Idaho; 29% in Kentucky6% in Indiana; and 29% in Ohio. On the other hand, Republicans had their turnout climb across every state that has voted so far, and more than doubled their average turnout for North Carolina. Couvillon also highlighted that the electorate from three states– Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and North Carolina– flipped once again from 2018 to 2022 from a heavily Democratic advantage to a Republican one. Oregon was the single silver lining for all Democrats. Republicans increased their turnout but ended up being a much smaller percentage of the total electorate due to higher Democratic turnout.
The trends for turnout heavily favored Democrats back in 2018, claimed Couvillon, as reported by the Post. JMC Analytics data from the 2018 primary season highlighted that Democrats made up roughly 53% of the overall electorate, and increased turnout that year by a staggering 75% over 2014. Democrats managed to flip well over 41 seats to take back the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms.
This news of a larger Republican turnout advantage is just the most recent red flag for Democrats that Republicans are going to be out in force for these upcoming midterm elections.