| Voter Participation Data Center

April 25, 2016

2016 Election

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)

Delaware: 31 Democratic delegates (awarded proportionally); 16 Republican (winner-take-all)

Maryland: 118 Democratic delegates (awarded proportionally); 38 Republican (winner-take-all by district and state)

Pennsylvania: 210 Democratic delegates (awarded proportionally); 71 Republican (winner-take-all/“loophole”)

Rhode Island: 33 Democratic delegates (awarded proportionally); 19 Republican (awarded proportionally)

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

What We're Reading

U.S. Census: Unmarried and Single Americans Week

To commemorate Unmarried and Single Americans Week (September 17-23), the U.S. Census has produced a “Facts for Features” profile (PDF) of 2016 census data about unmarried Americans. Here are some of the highlights:

There are 110.6 unmarried people 18 or older in America, making up 45.2% of the U.S. adult population.
35.4 million Americans lived alone in 2016, representing 28.1% of all US households — up from 17.1% in 1970.
Despite unmarried people being 45.2% of the U.S. adult population, only 39.6% of voters in the 2016 presidential election were unmarried.

Read the rest of the U.S. Census Bureau’s “Facts for Features” profile (PDF) on unmarried Americans.

Millennials to pass baby boomers as largest voter-eligible age group, and what it means

For the first time, millennials next year will pass baby boomers as the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote.

By Ronald Brownstein, CNN Senior Political Analyst

July 25, 2017

(CNN)In 2018, the American electorate will cross a historic threshold that could reshape the political balance of power-or leave Democrats fuming in frustration at continued Republican dominance of Washington.

For the first time, millennials next year will pass baby boomers as the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote, according to the well-respected demographic forecasts from the States of Change project at the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy group. That transition will end a remarkable four decades of dominance for the baby boomers, who have been the largest generation of eligible voters since 1978, when they surpassed what’s been popularly referred to as the Greatest Generation (or G.I. Generation) raised during the Depression. Read more here.

How Votes Have Shifted: Changes in Partisan Performance 2000-2016

Demographic change is slowly, but inevitably, moving Western states to the left.

By Reid Wilson

The 11th story in The Hill’s Changing America series, in which they investigate the demographic and economic trends shaping the nation’s politics. Nevada’s booming growth underscores the two trends working most in Democrats’ favor: the rising power of cities that are acting more reliably liberal, and the expanding influence of Hispanic-Americans who are becoming the nation’s largest minority community. Read more here.

2016 Primary Spotlight: April 26 Primaries (CT, DE, MD, PA, RI)

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