Thread by @TheValuesVoter

If you look at the voter turnout data for all the Presidential elections that have taken place since 2000, you will notice a few interesting things.

In all of these past six elections, turnout in blue states has been a good bit larger than in red states.
electproject.org/home/voter-tur…

Turnout, the percentage of the people who are eligible to vote who actually vote, is smaller in red states than it is in blue states. Consistently.

In all but one of the last six elections (all but 2004), at least seven of the ten states with the highest turnout were blue states.

And in all but one of the last six elections (all but 2012), at least eight of the ten states with the lowest turnout were red states.

The states that have had the highest average ranking for turnout in Presidential Elections since 2000:
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Michigan and Vermont.

The states with the lowest:
Hawaii, West Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arizona, South Carolina, Indiana and New Mexico.

So, red states, on average, have lower turnout than blue states. All the time. In every election since at least 2000.

Question: if turnout were higher in some red states, would they still be red states? Or would they become blue states?

A total of only 15 states have gone both blue and red since 2000.

A few of these states have an interesting pattern when it comes to turnout rate and when they flipped from red to blue.

Arizona turnout
2000 - 45.6% - RED
2004 - 54.1% - RED
2008 - 57.7% - RED
2012 - 52.6% - RED
2016 - 54.9% - RED
2020 - 65.2% - BLUE

In 2000, Arizona was ranked 48th in turnout. As it moved up to 44th in 2012 and 43rd in 2016, the margin got tighter. In 2020, it flipped.

Colorado turnout:

2000 - 57.5% - RED
2004 - 66.7% - RED
2008 - 71.0% - BLUE
2012 - 69.9% - BLUE
2016 - 70.0% - BLUE
2020 - 75.5% - BLUE

The state flipped after the turnout exceeded 66.7%.

Georgia turnout:

2000 - 45.8% - RED
2004 - 56.2% - RED
2008 - 62.5% - RED
2012 - 59.0% - RED
2016 - 59.1% - RED
2020 - 67.7% - BLUE

I haven’t yet charted turnout vs margin but am going to do it. Here’s a chart of the margins over the years in AZ and GA.

Nevada turnout:

2000 - 45.2% - RED
2004 - 55.3% - RED
2008 - 57.0% - BLUE
2012 - 56.4% - BLUE
2016 - 57.4% - BLUE
2020 - 65.2% - BLUE

New Hampshire turnout:

2000 - 63.9% - RED
2004 - 70.9% - BLUE
2008 - 71.7% - BLUE
2012 - 70.2% - BLUE
2016 - 71.4% - BLUE
2020 - 74.7% - BLUE

Virginia turnout:

2000 - 54.0% - RED
2004 - 60.6% - RED
2008 - 67.0% - BLUE
2012 - 66.1% - BLUE
2016 - 66.1% - BLUE
2020 - 72.0% - BLUE

These states all have something in common. At some point in time, they flipped from one party to another. And the time they flipped coincided with the turnout for the state exceeding a certain threshold.