Increased voter turnout in 2020 unlikely to help Dems win

Politico:

Conventional wisdom is that those who stayed home in 2016 cost Hillary Clinton the election and if Democrats can just increase turnout in 2020, they’ll defeat President Donald Trump in November. That assumption is likely wrong.

Report after report has shown that nonvoters nationwide prefer Democrats over Republicans. But new data from the Knight Foundation suggests that if every eligible adult voted in 2020, Democrats would likely increase their popular vote lead from the 2016 presidential election—but still lose the Electoral College.

In the closest battleground states, more nonvoters say they’re likely to support Trump, if they vote, than support the Democratic Party’s nominee. And that could have serious implications for the two major parties’ traditional approaches to getting people to the polls on Election Day.

The United States has low voter turnout by international standards. In 2016, over 40 percent of people who were eligible to vote did not, including more than 2.5 million people in Michigan, 3.5 million people in Pennsylvania and 1 million people in Wisconsin, the three states where Trump defeated Clinton by a collective 77,774-vote margin to win the presidency.

As part of its “100 Million Project,” the Knight Foundation surveyed thousands of nonvoters—defined as those who are eligible but not registered or registered but have cast no more than one ballot in the past six national elections—in 10 of the most competitive states to better understand what could be the most pivotal portion of the electorate, especially as 2020 may be on track to have a record-shattering turnout.

Whereas nationally more nonvoters say they would rather vote this November for a generic Democratic nominee than vote for Trump, in Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia, more nonvoters say they would vote for Trump than a Democrat. In Georgia, which Trump won in 2016, more nonvoters say they would support the Democratic nominee than Trump, and in the other battleground states polled, neither Trump nor a generic Democratic nominee had an advantage—or the advantage was below the margin of error.
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In terms of voter enthusiasm, the attacks on Trump have backfired on Democrats.  Impeachment actually energized Republican voters.  You can see the enthusiasm at Trump rallies around the country.  Another tell is the attempt by Democrats to do away with the Electoral College.  BTW, that is not going to happen.  The small states would be crazy to turn the decision on who becomes President to voters in LA County or New York City.  The current attacks on farmers by some on the left show the wisdom of the framers in protecting the interests of all the country and not just city dwellers.