National Presidential Election Turnout: 1952 to 2020

Published date01 November 2021
AuthorDavid W. Romero,Francine Sanders Romero
DOI10.1177/1532673X211031816
Date01 November 2021
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211031816
American Politics Research
2021, Vol. 49(6) 637 –645
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211031816
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Article
Introduction
Post WWII America saw a number of dramatic, positive
societal changes. Among them was noticeable growth in edu-
cational attainment. Given this, scholars expected that presi-
dential election turnout should have increased. Instead, after
peaking in 1960, it took a steep, prolonged decline. This
downturn sparked deep concern over the health of American
democracy and generated a voluminous body of individual-
level literature devoted to its explanation. A partial list of
potential culprits includes: decline in civic attitudes (e.g.,
partisanship, efficacy, trust, etc.) and civic behaviors (e.g.,
newspaper reading, watching TV news, etc.); decline in
social capital (e.g., group membership, etc.); decreased
party mobilization; generational replacement; and the linger-
ing affects of external shocks (e.g., the Vietnam war and
Watergate).1 The post-1960 decline, however, no longer
dominates presidential election turnout’s trajectory. Since
1996, it has been on the upswing. This upward bend in trajec-
tory complicates our understanding of national presidential
election turnout, as we have yet to settle on its description,
much less its explanation(s).2
Here, we conduct the first national-level, political sci-
ence-oriented multivariate statistical modeling of American
presidential election turnout.3 Analyzing elections across
the modern era, 1952 to 2020, we present a combination of
important corroborating and original findings.4 First, we
model turnout’s trajectory in search of trend and show that
the extant description of turnout taking a steep, prolonged
post-1960 decline, followed by a post-1968 flattening, is
outdated. We find that turnout’s decline is a post-1968 secu-
lar phenomenon and when so modeled presidential election
turnout’s expected increase is revealed. Second, we predict
presidential election turnout over the 1960 through 2012
elections.5 The results from our causal modeling suggest
turnout’s increase can be traced to a strong, pervasive
force—increased polarization—working its influence on
turnout indirectly through the direct, positive affects of neg-
ative presidential campaign advertising and voter external
efficacy.
American National Presidential
Election Turnout
Figure 1 gives national presidential election turnout’s trajec-
tory, measured as the voting eligible population (VEP) and
the voting age population (VAP), over the 1952 through 2020
elections.6 Briefly, turnout appears flat from 1952 through
1968, then drops precipitously in 1972, and, attenuated, con-
tinued downward (1992 excepted) through 1996, since when
it has staggered upward.
1031816APRXXX10.1177/1532673X211031816American Politics ResearchRomero
research-article2021
1The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
Corresponding Author:
Francine Sanders Romero, The University of Texas at San Antonio,
501 W. Cesar E. Chavez Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78207, USA.
Email: francine.romero@utsa.edu
National Presidential Election Turnout:
1952 to 2020
Francine Sanders Romero1 and David W. Romero1
Abstract
In an era when elections scholars expected American national presidential election turnout to increase, its steep, prolonged
post-1960 decline sparked deep concern and generated an avalanche of individual-level analyses searching for explanation.
The post-1960 decline, however, no longer dominates turnout’s trajectory; it has been on the upswing since 1996. This
complicates our understanding as we have yet to settle on turnout’s description, much less its explanation. Here we introduce
the first political science-oriented, multivariate modeling of American national presidential election turnout. Our results offer
a mix of important confirmatory and original findings. First, we discover that modeling turnout’s decline as a post-1968
secular disturbance reveals turnout’s expected steady increase across the modern era (1952–2020). Second, we show that
turnout’s increase can be traced to increased polarization working its influence indirectly through the direct, positive turnout
affects of voter external efficacy and negative presidential campaign advertising (1960–2012).
Keywords
presidential election turnout, polarization, negative advertising, efficacy

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