Waldman: GOP struggles to motivate voters

Most Americans don’t vote in midterm elections; turnout in 2014 was 37 percent, in 2010 it was 42 percent, and in 2006 it was 41 percent. But to the parties, what matters isn’t how many people get to the polls, it’s whether their people get to the polls and the other party’s don’t.

Right now, Republicans are beginning to worry that not only are Democratic unusually motivated, Republican voters are looking at the election happening in seven weeks and saying, “Whatever.”

The GOP starts off at a disadvantage because this is the first midterm of a new presidency, when the opposition almost always does well. That’s because a president gives his opponents lots to be angry about, and anger may be the most powerful motivator in politics. That anger has spurred unprecedented mobilization and activism on the left, which is why most analysts predict that Democrats will take back the House.

But the message doesn’t seem to be getting through to Republican voters. Axios reports that recent Republican National Committee polling showed “57 percent of strong Donald Trump supporters believe it’s unlikely Democrats win the House,” and over the weekend, The New York Times reported that Republican focus groups have identified a dangerous apathy among the party’s voters about the midterms.

Conservative-leaning voters in the study routinely dismissed the possibility of a Democratic wave election, said an official familiar with the research, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the data was not intended to be disclosed. Breaking that attitude of complacency is now the Republicans’ top priority, far more than wooing moderates with gentler messaging about economic growth.

When every day Trump says this is the greatest economy in history and “The poll numbers are through the roof,” and Fox News reiterates it over and over, why should Republican voters believe otherwise?

So Republicans need to find something to tell their voters to get them to the polls, and “How’d ya like them tax cuts?” is obviously not cutting it. They have to find a message that will get their voters fired up to show up at the polls.

As Axios also reports, Republicans have found that saying Democrats are coming to take away their Medicare tests well, particularly among older Republican voters. This is an old playbook for the GOP; the only difference this time is that it’s in the context of Democratic proposals for “Medicare for all.” The argument goes that if Democrats actually provide universal health coverage, it will mean taking away Medicare from seniors. Or as Trump so eloquently put it, “They want to raid Medicare to pay for socialism.”

Will it work? There are reasons to think not, most importantly that the older voters most likely to be persuaded by it are already the ones most likely to vote. Voting propensity rises with age (until you get to about 75, after which there’s a drop-off, presumably because of health and mobility issues). Your average septuagenarian Fox News viewer might react well to a scare message about Medicare, but he was probably going to vote, anyway.

What Republicans really need is not just for their regular voters to turn out, but to bring in voters who don’t usually vote in the midterm election. Like, for instance, those working-class white voters who came out to vote for Trump in 2016, in no small part as a statement of white identity. Are they going to get pushed to the polls in huge numbers by a “they’re coming for your Medicare” message when Trump isn’t on the ballot? I guess it’s possible, but I doubt it.

Meanwhile, if nothing else Democrats have more room to grow their midterm turnout because so many of their constituencies, like young people and minorities, usually don’t vote in midterms at a rate comparable to many Republican constituencies. If Democrats can get them angry and motivated — and so far they have — they can swamp the Republicans’ efforts.

And that may be a problem that isn’t in Republicans’ power to solve.

Paul Waldman writes for the Washington Post. Reach him at postwaldman@gmail.com.