WASHINGTON – On Election Day, 12 gubernatorial races were on the ballot, yielding party changes that favored Republicans.
Democrats may have converted one Republican state house, in North Carolina, as Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) leads incumbent Pat McCrory (R) by just 5,000. Provisional, absentee and overseas ballots remain to be counted. Republicans took Democratic posts in Missouri, New Hampshire and Vermont. Open seats in Delaware and West Virginia remained in Democratic hands, while Republicans held their two open seats in Indiana and North Dakota.
Democratic incumbents were re-elected in Montana in a close election (Gov. Steve Bullock), Oregon (Gov. Kate Brown), and Washington (Gov. Jay Inslee), while Republicans held Utah (Gov. Gary Herbert).
Overall, the gubernatorial count advances to 34R-15D-1I, with Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I) being a former Republican and the North Carolina post still undecided.
Voter Turnout
The voter participation rate appears to be coming in well under the 129,172,069 people who officially cast ballots in 2012. At the end of initial counting, just under 126 million individuals are recorded as voting, but that number will continue to increase as more state counts become final. It is estimated that possibly more than 50% of voters took advantage of the early voting procedures that are available in 43 states and the District of Columbia. A total of 37 states and D.C. allow “no-excuse” early voting, meaning anyone can vote by mail or in-person as a matter of choice. In six states (KY, MS, MO, NY, SC, VA) one still must have a valid excuse to vote early or absentee, meaning the individual must indicate that they are unable to be present at their usual polling place on Election Day.
We won’t know the final turnout numbers for at least two weeks, as states will conduct their official canvasses after all votes have been received. Large blocks of votes, meaning at least a million, will be reported in California during the next several days and even weeks, as their large number of mail votes results in a laborious counting system that begins only when all votes are received. Washington, one of three states that employs a total vote-by-mail procedure, accepts ballots post-marked on Election Day, meaning the count will stretch for maybe as long as the next 10 days. The other two, Oregon and Colorado, require ballots to be received on Election Day.
In the last 30 years, turnout has increased from 81.5 million voters in 1976 to a high of 131.4 million in 2008. The fall-off between 2008 and 2012 was -1.7%. During this 30-year span, presidential turnout has increased in every election except for 1988, 1996 and 2012.
The largest drop-off from one successive presidential campaign to another (7.8%) occurred in 1996, when President Bill Clinton defeated Republican Bob Dole. The biggest increase in successive elections came in 2004 (President George W. Bush defeating Democrat John Kerry), when a modern-day record occurred. An increase of 16.1% in voter participation arose in 2004, when compared to vote levels from the 2000 election. Until then, the highest increase was found in 1992, when 14.0% more voters cast their ballots than did in the 1988 election.