2016 Primary Spotlight: June 7 Primary States
Expect major news outlets to declare Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee on Tuesday night, June 7 — primary day for voters in six states. Even though California, with its 475 pledged delegates and 73 super delegates at stake in the Democratic primary, has been called “the big enchilada” by Senator Bernie Sanders, Sec. Clinton is expected to reach the 2,383 delegates required for a majority even before Californians’ votes are counted, once New Jersey’s polls close at 8 EDT.
Even so, California will still be one of the most closely watched Democratic presidential primaries in modern times. California’s voter rolls grew by almost 650,000 in the final six weeks of registration, and 3/4 of those new voters were Democrats. Of the 646,220 people who registered in the final rush — between April 8 and May 23 — 76% became Democrats who want to weigh-in in the race between Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton.
Seventy percent of the eligible voters in California and New Mexico, one of the other June 7 primary states, are members of the Rising American Electorate –unmarried women, people of color, and millennials. 28% of California’s eligible voters and 35% of New Mexico’s vote-eligible population are Latinos.
Learn more about unmarried women in the June 7 primary states:
CNN / Pew Research: Millennial Voters Rise Up
As seen in CNN, Pew Research Center’s latest report confirms Millennials have overtaken Baby Boomers – but in terms of voter registration, Boomers still dwarf Millennials.
Both Millennials and Baby Boomers account for about 31% of Americans who can vote, though the number of Baby Boomers, who are ages 52 to 70 this year, has been declining since its 2004 peak of 72.9 million. Gen Xers, who are between 36 and 51 years old, number only 57 million, or 25% of the electorate. […]
“While it might be a ‘slam-dunk’ that millennials soon will be the largest generation in the electorate, it will likely be a much longer time before they are the largest bloc of voters,” wrote Pew Senior Researcher Richard Fry, who authored the report.
Virginia Web Tools Let Users Access Interactive Election Data
Pew Charitable Trust and the Virginia Department of Elections teamed up to help make “decisions related to election administration more transparent and evidence-based.”
Their early results are in, and they are encouraging..
James Alcorn, chairman of the State Board of Elections, thinks this project will be an important resource for election officials and the public. “All too often, discussions about election administration turn on anecdotes because objective evidence wasn’t easily available. This tool turns the hard data that the Department of Elections collects into accessible, objective information that can be used to improve elections across the commonwealth,” he says.
We at VPC are particularly impressed with Virginia’s interactive tool for examining voter registration trends. Check it out for yourself, or read the full story at Pew.
Pew: Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation
Pew Research Center reviewed the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest population estimates, and confirmed that the Rising American Electorate has risen all the way to the top. As of April 2016, “Millennials, whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69). And Generation X (ages 35-50 in 2015) is projected to pass the Boomers in population by 2028.”
Read the full story.
CAP: Oregon’s Success Shows Way Forward for Automatic Voter Registration
As a recent editorial in the New York Times highlights, while some states are taking advantage of the Shelby decision to prevent Americans from voting, several states are working to expand the franchise and protect citizens’ voting rights.
Oregon, in particular, is blazing the path forward with its adoption of automatic voter registration at the DMV. Liz Kennedy at Center for American Progress writes: “The millions of eligible citizens who are missing from America’s voter rolls can be placed on those rolls in a cost-effective and secure manner. States can and must remove barriers and facilitate political participation for all eligible voters so that every voice is heard as our nation charts the course forward together.”
Read the full story.
Pew Research: 2016 electorate will be the most diverse in U.S. history
Jens Manuel Krogstad at Pew Research Center’s Fact Tank blog examines the Rising American Electorate’s growth since the 2012 elections: “The U.S. electorate this year will be the country’s most racially and ethnically diverse ever. Nearly one-in-three eligible voters on Election Day (31%) will be Hispanic, black, Asian or another racial or ethnic minority, up from 29% in 2012.”
Krogstad goes on to caution, however, that low turnout is likely to blunt these voters’ impact at the polls: “While the U.S. electorate is growing more diverse, there’s a caveat when it comes to the impact of these changes: the relatively low voter turnout rates among Hispanics and Asians. In the 2012 presidential election, 64% of non-Hispanic white eligible voters cast ballots, as did 67% of black eligible voters. By comparison, the voter turnout rate was 48% among Hispanics and 47% among Asians.”
2016 Primary Spotlight: Indiana
Indiana’s standalone primary on May 3 has emerged as a must-win for Republican Ted Cruz. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton come into the state with momentum from their multi-state wins last Tuesday. There are 57 delegates at stake in Indiana’s GOP primary, and 92 in the Democratic primary. The Rising American Electorate (RAE)—the unmarried women, people of color, and millennials who make up 57% of eligible voters nationally—make up only 46% of Indiana’s voting-eligible population. Unmarried women make up the largest percentage of the RAE in Indiana. Learn more about their lives.
The Atlantic: The 2016 Electorate is Voting Just as Predicted
At The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein and Leah Askarinam have crunched the numbers on 22 state exit polls to find that presidential primary candidates’ demographic appeals have remained remarkably consistent since the voting began in February. In other words: throughout this contest, a state’s demographic makeup—race, gender, age, and socioeconomic status—has been the major factor in determining which of the Republican and Democratic primary candidates will win there.
Read the article.
2016 Primary Spotlight: April 26 Primaries (CT, DE, MD, PA, RI)
The five presidential primaries next Tuesday are all on the east coast—Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. These primaries could mark the end of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and move the Republicans closer to a contested convention.
Here’s what’s at stake:
- Connecticut: 70 Democratic delegates (awarded proportionally); 28 Republican (awarded proportionallyif no candidate gets >50%, winner-take-all if one candidate does)
The Rising American Electorate—unmarried women, people of color, and millennials—make up the majority of voters in Maryland (56%) and Delaware (56%) and close to half the electorate in the other primary states (49% in Connecticut, 47% in Pennsylvania, and 48% in Rhode Island).
Forty percent of the eligible voters in Maryland are people of color (40%), the largest share of any state voting on Tuesday. 30% of MD’s eligible voters are African Americans—and the participation of these voters could decide the tightly-contested Democratic primary race for the open U.S. Senate seat between Representatives Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards. According to Washington Post polling, voters are split along racial lines between Van Hollen, a white man, and Edwards, an African-American woman. The Post poll shows that Edwards has a 51-point lead among African-American women.
The VPC has prepared in-depth profiles on unmarried women in each of Tuesday’s five primary states:
Connecticut
Delaware
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
2016 Primary Spotlight: New York
For the first time in decades, both the Democratic and Republican primaries in New York on Tuesday, April 19 will be consequential. The nominees are usually already decided this late into the primary calendar. But candidates from both parties have a lot riding the Tuesday’s outcome of their closed primary elections. (Independents cannot vote in the New York primaries.)
New York is the second most delegate-rich state for Democrats with a mix of 291 pledged, at-large and uncommitted delegates up for grabs. On the Republican side, New York has the fourth-highest number of delegates, with 95 delegates at stake.
The Rising American Electorate—unmarried women, people of color, and millennials—could have a significant effect on the outcome in New York, where they make up 61% of the eligible voters in the state. (Nationally, the RAE accounts for 57% of eligible voters.) People of color also make up a higher portion of eligible voters in New York (34%) than they do nationally (30%) and unmarried women are also a larger share of eligible voters in New York: 29% versus 26% nationally.
