Who's Who of Voter Turnout and Partisan Choice 2010

Interested in the who’s who of voter turnout and voter preference in the midterm election? Here are four places to start.

CNN Election Exit Polls
CNN has the best presentation of the main national exit poll shared by all major media outlets. The exit polls show the voter preference by all major demographics – age, income, ethnicity, gender, etc. In parenthesis is each demographic group’s share of the 90 million voters that voted this year. For the national perspective, look at the House national exit poll. For a state by state view, look at the exit polls in Governor or US Senate races.

New York Times Exit Poll Tool
The NY Times has a clever tool that let’s you instantly compare the voter preference of different demographics to exit polls from previous national elections.

Pew Hispanic
The Pew Hispanic Center is the most comprehensive source of Latino voter turnout. Latinos are the fastest growing part of the American electorate. While making up only only 8-9% of the actual turnout in 2010 and 2008, their share of the electorate grows with each cycle.

CIRCLE – www.civicyouth.org
CIRCLE has extensive research on youth civic engagement. Their site has an up to date analysis of voter participation of 18-29 year olds, the most ethnically diverse part of the American electorate. As CIRCLE just reported, the national exit poll just revised their first estimate of youth turnout upward from11% to 12% of the electorate. Still youth turnout in midterms remains a big challenge. There were an estimated 13.5 million fewer younger voters turning out in 2010 than did in 2008, the largest percent drop off of any demographic.

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