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Against the backdrop of the 2008 presidential election, a watershed event in terms of electoral participation, many speculated that renewed interest in voting would spill over into the 2010 cycle, resulting in a meaningful uptick in voter turnout in the midterm elections overall. Turnout was expected to be especially robust among Republicans eager to regain their numbers in 2010, capitalizing on Democratic withdrawal fueled by voters' frustration with President Obama, congressional Democrats, and the struggling economy. In 2008, an electorate energized around an historic contest and unprecedented levels of voter mobilization helped to drive more citizens to the polls on Election Day than ever before (Panagopoulos and Francia 2009). An estimated 131.1 million Americans voted for president, representing 61.6% of the eligible voting population (McDonald 2009).1 Voter turnout among eligible voters in 2008 was 1.5 percentage points higher than in 2004, when 122.3 million voters participated in the presidential election (Bergan et al. 2005). The 2008 election thus marked the third consecutive presidential election cycle in which voter turnout increased, reversing a trend of declining participation that began in the 1960s (McDonald 2009). In fact, national turnout in recent presidential elections has rivaled modern highs in the level of electoral participation that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.
Despite expectations, however, the bounce in voter turnout nationwide was rather modest in 2010. In absolute terms, more ballots were cast for the highest state offices across the country in November 2010--about 89.1 million--than in any prior congressional midterm election cycle, and national turnout climbed for the third consecutive midterm cycle.2 But the rate of overall voter turnout in 2010 is estimated to have been about average; McDonald (2010) estimates that 40.8% of the eligible electorate voted in November 2010, only slightly higher than the 40.4% who voted in 2006. One conceivable explanation is that Democratic apathy in 2010 was offset but not necessarily overcome by revitalized Republican enthusiasm. The scenario was reversed in the 2006 midterm cycle, when Republicans were fighting an uphill battle against Democrats.
Figure 1 presents national voter turnout rates in midterm election cycles since 1982 and suggests that 2010 turnout was in line with participation rates in previous cycles during this period. On average,...