Rock Hackshaw has asked me a few times on this blog my opinion about election turnout in New York and the US. There are as many theories about this as there are theorists but one theory that I believe has a lot going for it regards ethnic politics.
Put simply, ethnic or racially polarized election contests increase turnouts!
There has been no Presidential election since then that has had a higher percentage turnout than the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election. The reason put forward by many is that this first election where a Catholic had a serious chance of being elected President increased the turnout of both Catholics and anti-Catholics.
Closer to home, the 3 highest turnout New York City Democratic Primaries in the last 40 years were:
*1973 Mayoral Runoff between Abe Beame and Herman Badillo. That election was the first realistic chance a racial minority had to be elected Mayor. Badillo overwhelmingly carried the Hispanic & Black vote and Beame almost as overwhelmingly carried the White vote and more Whites voted
*1977 Mayoral Primary. This contest had a serious candidate from all the dominant ethnic groups in the City. Jews Ed Koch, Abe Beame & Bella Abzug, Italian Mario Cuomo, Black Percy Sutton & Hispanic Herman Badillo.
*1989 Mayoral Primary. A racially polarized electorate chose David Dinkins over Ed Koch. Dinkins received a record vote among Blacks and a sizable majority among Hispanics. The turnout was so heavy that Koch received more actual votes in losing this Primary then he did in the previous Primaries that he won!
In looking at recent elections, we find a similar pattern. I ran some counts using the Prime New York voter file. Here are the numbers of Hispanic Democrats who voted in recent Citywide Primaries:
2001 Primary – 151,156, 2001 Runoff – 163,839, 2002 – 66,370, 2004 – 45,229, 2005 – 109,349.
2001 & 2005 obviously stand out. What happened in those years? Freddie Ferrer ran.
In 2001 Primary & Runoff, he was a very serious candidate for Mayor. In 2005, he was a little less serious candidate.
Let’s look at all Hispanic voters in the recent General elections: 2001 – 203,225, 2002 – 201,116, 2004 – 446,307, 2005 – 248,369.
In 2001, without Ferrer on the ballot after he lost a bitter Primary the turnout was less than it was in 2005 when Ferrer was the Democratic nominee despite the overall turnout be lower in 2005 than 2001.
Please note that this is not a plea for polarizing rhetoric and racial intolerance. I was involved in all three of the high turnout Mayoral campaigns and there were some pretty ugly scenes