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In the immediate aftermath of the election, Republicans slammed Mitt Romney for not being able to match the popular vote totals of John McCain, but many forgot that the full totals in the popular vote take a few weeks to finalize. This past week, Romney's totals surpassed McCain's in an election that had a smaller overall turnout, Kimberly Strassel reports for the Wall Street Journal --- and Romney did significantly better in swing states than the GOP did in 2008 as well (via Scott Johnson at Power Line): Mr. Romney beat Mr. McCain's numbers in every single battleground, save Ohio....

In the wake of Mitt Romney's loss, many Republicans say the GOP must make far-reaching changes to be competitive in future elections. White voters are a smaller and smaller part of the electorate, they point out, while Latinos and other minorities are growing as a percentage of the voting public. Unless the Republican Party reinvents itself to appeal to those voters, the argument goes, the GOP can get used to being out of power. There's something to that. The electorate is changing, and the Republican Party needs to keep up with the times. But the more fundamental answer to the...

President Obama’s campaign organization is the greatest political machine in modern history. How it was possible to take a moribund economy, high unemployment, and no detectable foreign policy and turn it into a sweeping electoral victory over a credible opponent is one of the great political stories of our time. Plouffe, Messina, Axelrod. Political geniuses who wiped away forever the Clinton campaign axiom, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and replaced it with, “It’s the Community Organizing, Stupid.” A few years ago, I was talking to a Democratic member of Congress who is close to Obama. She who told me of seeing...

.....No, the real story is that three states held votes and nobody came. Almost nobody, that is. Consider that the total turnout for Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota combined was barely over half of the turnout of South Carolina alone and -- worse yet -- barely over half the turnout for the same three states in 2008. Thus, after South Carolina's record-setting primary turnout, the Republican Party has now seen a total of five events in a row where turnout was down compared to 2008. This includes the three events from this week along with Nevada and Florida. Yes, something has...

The states examined are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, and Michigan. The trend for Obama was across the board: fewer votes in all swing states. However, the Republicans were able to increase the votes for Romney in seven of the nine states.

Comparing 2008 vote totals to 2012 (with some numbers projected, as for example Colorado only has 90% of the votes in) overall in VA, NC, OH, NH, PA, FL, MI, MN, WI, CO, IA, NV (all states were also battleground states in 2008) Romney had 21,674,900 votes to 20,300,366 for McCain in those states, for a 6.8% advantage. In every individual battleground state Romney turnout was higher than McCain, from 20.4% higher in Nevada to 0.6% higher in PA. Ohio Romney turnout was 7.3% higher than McCain. In the non-battleground state of NY, Romney had 6.6% LESS turnout than McCain....

Preliminary figures indicate fewer people participated this time. Associated Press figures showed that about 118 million people had voted in the White House race, but that number will rise as more votes are counted. In 2008, 131 million people voted, according to the Federal Election Commission.

A drop in voter turnout in Tuesday's election didn't keep President Barack Obama from winning a second term in the White House. Preliminary figures suggest fewer people voted this year than four years ago, when voters shattered turnout records as they elected Obama to his first term. In most states, the numbers are shaping up to be even lower than in 2004, said Curtis Gans, the director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate. Still, the full picture may not be known for weeks, because much of the counting takes place after Election Day. "By and...

I spent a lot of time following the interpretations that many on here had been offering in regards to the polls. They made sense and that appeals to the Spock side of me. Yes, I'm a nerd. I'm looking for those who are interested in understanding why our interpretation of the polls failed to begin sharing their continued observations.

Middle Cheese checks in: "Just a brief report from the Big Cheeses at Team Romney about Ohio early/absentee voting: Obama is under-performing in Kerry-Obama counties, and Republicans are outperforming in McCain 08 counties. As of yesterday, in swing Hamilton County, there are 1,000 fewer Democrat and 800 more GOP early/absentee votes than at this point in 08. Ohio Republicans will turn out. But the key to a Romney victory in OH will be independent voters, who favor Romney by double-digits over Obama in 21 of the last 24 public opinion polls."

In a sign that the 2012 presidential election is likely to be a close race, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney each received 5 votes in the town of Dixville Notch, NH. The votes are the first official votes tallied in the 2012 Presidential race. In 2008, President Obama defeated GOP nominee John McCain 16-5 in Dixville Notch, en route to a convincing electoral win.

RUSH: Folks, I'm gonna give you some advice. For those of you who are faint of heart, for those of you who scare easily, for those of you who... Let’s say you live in St. Louis. In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today there are two pictures. There's a picture of a compassionate and caring and very attached and very hurting Obama, hugging a New Jerseyan who's lost everything. Right next to it is a picture of Romney in front of a large gathering waving and doing campaign appearances. Of course, the juxtaposition is Romney doesn't care; Obama cares. If you...

Romney’s political director says his team is more focused on getting people less inclined to vote to send in absentee ballots or go to the polls—and is successfully cutting the president’s lead among early voters.Rich Beeson, political director of the Romney campaign, is not moved by reports of a huge “ground game” advantage on the part of the Obama campaign. “The only metric anyone has seen is the number of offices and the number of staff on the ground,” Beeson said. “In Virginia, Obama has 80 offices, we have 26,” he said by way of example. “In Florida the Obama...

Hawaii had the lowest voter turnout rate in the United States in 2008, with fewer than half of the eligible population casting ballots. When I traveled to the state to find out why, I thought most of the problem might be apathy. The surfer thing, you know? That is part of it, to be sure. But there are many reasons America's 50th state doesn't vote as much as the other 49, plenty of them specific to Hawaii. Here's a bite-sized look at eight. If you want to be part of the solution, help us change the list by convincing these...

"Simply stated, Cuyahoga County has lost enough Democrats and independents since 2008 that, when projected across the state of Ohio, Obama’s big 2008 gains are all gone. Given how drastically voter registration has changed in Cuyahoga County since 2008, it is likely that Romney can carry the state of Ohio, which is quite contrary to what popular media polls are saying.” That’s the analysis of Clinton Cooper at Election Insights [1], an Ohio firm that uses geographic information systems (GIS) and election data to illustrate the political landscape of the electorate.While most pundits and media outlets are focused on...

The largest divergence among conservative and liberal polling critics this election is the debate over who will actually show up at the voting booth this November. Differences between the amounts of Democrats versus Republicans included in the poll are frequent. But embedded in each of these assumptions are questions on the racial make-up and how that varies from election to election. Democrats consistently talk about the “coalition of the ascendant” where the fastest growing segments of the population are minorities. As such they make up an ever-increasing segment of the voting population but also vote overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats....

In the last three general elections - 2004, 2006, and 2008 -- young voters have given the Democratic Party a majority of their votes, and for all three cycles they have been the party's most supportive age group. This year, 66% of those under age 30 voted for Barack Obama making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972. This pattern of votes, along with other evidence about the political leanings of young voters, suggests that a significant generational shift in political allegiance is occurring. This pattern...

There was a time when images of American embassies under siege and a United States ambassador being dragged through the streets by a baying mob would have represented serious trouble for the administration in power, especially when coupled with obvious dishonesty about the circumstances that led to the debacle and an apparent lack of foresight and prudence on the part of the State Department. If anything might be expected to move the polls, this should be it. Yet the effects of the last week’s events on polling in the presidential race have been: nothing.Most polls bounce around because the composition...

The results for the June 5 election have now been certified and posted by the Government Accountability Board, showing 57.8% of the state’s voting-age adults turned out in Wisconsin’s historic recall fight. That’s easily the highest turnout in more than 60 years for a non-presidential ballot: According to the final official results, Republican Gov. Scott Walker got 53.08% (a total of 1,335,585 votes) and Democrat Tom Barrett got 46.28% (a total of 1,164,480 votes). Total votes cast: 2,516,065. The June 5 turnout of nearly 58% of voting-age adults was far beyond that of any mid-term gubernatorial election in recent decades....

For the United States’ first century, Americans elected their leaders in full view of their neighbors, gathering on courthouse steps to announce their votes orally or hand a distinctive preprinted ballot or unfolded marked paper to a clerk. Such a public process made elections ripe for bribes and threats, although the scene around American polling places never matched Australia’s, where a population of criminals and goldbugs made electoral intimidation something of a democratic pastime. To end such shenanigans, each of Australia’s colonies began shifting to a secret ballot during the 1850s, and in 1872 England followed suit. A decade and...

The congregation repeated every word of the Rev. Jesse Jackson as if he were administering an oath. “Revive easy access to voting,” Jackson said recently at the 93rd Street Community Baptist Church in Miami. “And stop voter suppression.” Yup. It’s campaign season. Cue the talk among liberals that conservatives are trying to rob Democrats of their votes. This year’s target: A Republican election law, House Bill 1355, which cracks down on voter registration drives and eliminates early voting on the Sunday before Election Day. A pain? Definitely. But voter suppression? Not really. Changing times This isn’t Bull Connor siccing German...

President of the United States Republican Primary Candidate Votes Percent GINGRICH, NEWT (REP) 62,556 10.6% ROMNEY, MITT (REP) 339,097 57.3% PAUL, RON (REP) 77,897 13.2% SANTORUM, RICK (REP) 112,061 18.9% Democratic Primary Candidate Votes Percent OBAMA, BARACK (DEM) 484,958 100.0% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- United States Senator Republican Primary Candidate Votes Percent CHRISTIAN, DAVID ALAN (REP) 54,691 9.8% SCARINGI, MARC A. (REP) 40,834 7.4% WELCH, STEVEN D. (REP) 114,296 20.6% SMITH, TOM (REP) 231,013 41.6% ROHRER, SAM (REP) 115,072 20.7% Democratic Primary Candidate Votes Percent VODVARKA, JOSEPH JOHN (DEM) 108,888 20.2% CASEY, JR, BOB (DEM) 429,419 79.8%

It was a quiet Election Day in Easton, with few people turning out to vote in Pennsylvania's primary. "Worst one I've ever seen," said poll worker Mae Whitman, at the seventh district in the city's West Ward. "We had to struggle to get eight or nine this morning."

When I first read the headline from the Washington Post that turnout in the Republican primaries are actually up over 2008 and not depressed as the media has insisted for the last two months, I assumed that the comparison would be off, thanks to the longer, more drawn out process this year. After all, the primaries stopped being meaningful in February in 2008, while we’re heading into April with a fight still on our hands. However, the Post’s Aaron Blake accounts for that, and still concludes that in states which had meaningful primaries in both cycles, Republican turnout in 2012...

.......Chelsey Dargis, 21, who is studying to be a teacher, voted in Metairie for Mr. Romney because she said she thought he would reach out to independents. “I have Republican qualities, but I also agree with Democrats,” Ms. Dargis said, citing her approval of abortion rights and same-sex marriage. “I like Mitt Romney better because he once was a Democrat. He still has to have somewhat of the mind-set of a Democrat.”

The real story of the three results from Tuesday night is not that Rick Santorum picked up some wins -- though that is big. No, the real story is that three states held votes and nobody came. Almost nobody, that is. Consider that the total turnout for Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota combined was barely over half of the turnout of South Carolina alone and -- worse yet -- barely over half the turnout for the same three states in 2008.

MADISON — One million signatures suggest a lot of support to recall Gov. Scott Walker. But will 1 million names translate into a lot of votes? A Wisconsin Reporter analysis of the 2011 recalls indicates the answer is “yes,” albeit for both sides in this latest spate of recalls — those who hope to oust Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four GOP state senators, and those who hope to defeat the recall efforts. By the numbers In seven of the nine Senate recall elections last summer, the number of people who voted for the challenger exceeded the number of...

Has a liberal ever met a problem he didn’t throw money at? Take U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano (D-Somerville). In a recent radio interview on 1510-AM, he addressed the problem (?) of America’s lack of civic engagement and low voter turnout. “I think there is an obligation — not just a right, but an obligation — to vote,” Capuano said. His solution? Money. Your money. Capuano wants to “require people to vote,” but acknowledged that “we aren’t going to put people in jail.” So instead he came up with this idea: “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to say everybody...

...[Guadalupe] Valle, who will celebrate his 80th birthday in November, registered to vote for the first time on April 6. He did it so he could vote for Radle, a longtime West Side community activist and former city councilwoman who is running for the San Antonio Independent School District Board of Trustees. She is endorsed by Mayor Julián Castro in her race against Sharon Monreal, a substitute teacher in the district. An affable man with a friendly face and a shock of white hair, Valle told Radle he wanted to vote for her during a recent visit to Inner City...

THOUSANDS of Tea Party Patriots turned out today in Madison, Wisconsin, in support of Republican Governor Scott Walker and his plans to correct the state’s financial future. It was an amazing turnout considering the Saturday rally was only announced on Friday morning. Oh… And we paid our own way. The tea party patriots filled the state capital grounds from the steps to the street over 100 yards back. There were so many Walker supporters there that you couldn’t here the speakers from the stage in the back of the crowd. The AP today estimated that 70,000 protesters turned out in...

Dick Blumenthal is worried his voters are not showing up and has sent out a last minute get out and vote Email to his supporters.

Rep. Steve Kagen's (D-Wis.) campaign manager e-mailed supporters to warn them that turnout numbers were flagging and that they needed more voters to make their way to the polls. "We have just been going over the morning voting numbers — and turnout isn’t where we need it to be in our strong areas," campaign manager Julie Heun wrote in an e-mail. "This race is going to be a squeaker — and every vote will count."

Republicans lost ground to the Democrats in the urban counties on the largest and last day of early voting Friday, surely giving Democrats hope that a surge to blunt the GOP momentum could carry over into Election Day.

The Republican Party chief today forecast a wave of anti-Democratic voting on Election Day while his Democratic counterpart said a strong get-out-the-vote effort would hold back losses and help keep Congress out of GOP hands. Nine days before elections that will decide whether President Barack Obama will face a Republican Congress, party chairman Michael Steele said he has seen a groundswell and energy behind GOP candidates as he has traveled around the country. "I think you are going to see a wave, an unprecedented wave on Election Day that is going to surprise a lot of people," Steele said. Steele...

Above all else, the coming election is about ObamaCare. Democrats wish it were about the economy. Polls show that voters still blame the downturn more on President George W. Bush than on President Obama or the Democratic Congress. Sure, the Democrats haven't turned the economy around, but things also haven't gotten markedly worse. How could they face historic losses over an economic situation that voters think they inherited more than they created? It's this point -- sensible in a vacuum -- that presumably has led The New York Times to maintain across months -- and as late as last week...

PHOENIX — Amid stacks of voter-registration pamphlets and reminder mailers, three pairs of volunteers hunch over tables in Mi Familia Vota’s Arizona headquarters, assembling voter-information packets and tallying registration numbers. The nonpartisan activist group has already registered 14,000 Latinos since June for Arizona’s Permanent Early Voting List and expects to register about 11,000 more by October, according to state director Francisco Heredia. Heredia said this will be the year Latinos, feeling the pressure of the recession and concerned about the effects of SB 1070, will flock to the polls and wield the influence of their numbers. “SB 1070 is definitely...

Conservatives head to the polls in droves... and 'Cuda puts on a dazzling display of RAW POLITICAL MIGHT: _______________________________________________________ Asked about whether the GOP should move towards centrist-RINO candidates and positions following the Democrats' substantial 2008 election gains, Governor Bobby Jindal spelled-it-out in an interview with Rush Limbaugh: "People need to look at the history of Ronald Reagan when he lost his first attempt at the Presidency (in 1976). He didn’t go back and say, "Let’s water down the conservatism. Let’s dilute what we’re saying." He made it even stronger. He made it even sharper. There’s a lesson there for...

While there were few surprises in the outcome of Florida’s 2010 Primaries (Bill McCollum’s loss was a bit of a surprise) the results may herald trouble for Democrats come November. Florida’s Democratic party has a significant edge in registered voters but had a dismal turnout at the polls. Republicans have approximately 4,064,301 registered voters and Democrats have approximately 4,722,076, according to the Florida Division of Elections, giving Democrats an edge of roughly 658,000 registered voters ( SOURCE ).

While campaigning in Nevada Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told an audience of mostly Hispanic voters: "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay. Do I need to say more?" Watch the video here:(snip) Reid's racially-charged comments come as the Nevada Democrat is trying to boost Hispanic turnout in his bid for reelection this November. Polls show, however, that Reid's positions on immigration are very unpopular with Nevada voters in general. Reid supports the Obama administration's lawsuit against Arizona over its immigration law, but 63 percent of Nevada voters oppose the lawsuit, according to...

Fatima, Portugal, May 14, 2010 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. Federico Lombardi, the spokesman for the Vatican, said it was not a surprise that hundreds of thousands of people were in Fatima for Pope Benedict's Mass at Fatima yesterday. He recognized a "vitality" in the response and commented on the Holy Father's observation that the prophetic mission of Fatima is not complete.Estimates put the number of pilgrims in Fatima for Wednesday morning's Mass at around half a million between those who filled the enormous esplanade that sprawls before the Church of the Most Holy Trinity and the tens...

Saturday's special election for Hawaii's 1st Congressional District has garnered a huge amount of attention. The stakes are high: for the candidates, their political parties, Hawaii residents and even the Obama administration, given the national attention this race has drawn.

Despite a coordinated hype campaign between left-wing pro-illegal immigration activists and the mainstream media, turnout was a bust at May Day marches in two bellwether American cities where crowds were much lower than expected. In Los Angeles, the turnout was a mere tenth of the half-million that marched there four years ago.In a preview article published yestereday, Reuters said of the pending Los Angeles march:Marches across the state on Saturday will show whether Latinos are energized. The standard will be the rallies in March 2006, when some 500,000 people took over downtown Los Angeles to oppose a tough federal bill...

<p>According to a top Brown campaign adviser, there are "longer lines outside Boston than inside. Not good sign for Coakley. Scott's voters highly motivated."</p> <p>A Democratic source says get-out-the-vote efforts have been good for Coakley, but adds, "I don't know if the machine gets you 10 points."</p>

MARBLEHEAD, Mass. -- Call her Martha Chokely. It should have been the easiest election cakewalk in the free world. But things have gotten so bad here for state Attorney General Martha Coakley that the projected turnout models going into the election have been junked, as everything is flipped on its head. Just a week ago, conventional wisdom held that high voter turnout today would guarantee Coakley a smooth victory. But Republicans on the ground here believe now that her best hope may lie in a low turnout of just diehard Democrats. State Sen. Scott Brown's best hope, they argue, is...

  I'm passing these two observations from liberal Virginia bloggers on to readers, but they're so out of line with expectations, I have a hard time buying them.First, from Not Larry Sabato, about the Virginia delegate races: "SIX SEATS ARE GONE — ANOTHER NINE ARE IN PLAY FOR GOP PICKUP." Yesterday I predicted a GOP gain of six seats; I think most Virginia Republicans saw picking up 11 as their best-case scenario.Then, from Blue Virginia: I'm a bit skeptical of this, so take it with as big a grain of salt as you'd like, but it's from an excellent source....

Just returned from voting here in my little corner of bright-blue Northern Virginia. Went down to the local elementary school and the poll worker checked my ID. I assumed she was a racist trying that overburdensome disenfranchising trick on me. But alas, I was ready and whipped out my license. I asked about turnout and whether she could compare this year to 2005, the last time we had the post-presidential, off-year elections, and she said it was noticeably heavier. She said there had been a steady stream all day, which was apparently not the case four years ago.

In New Jersey, Turnout Higher In GOP and Swing Districts Than In Democrats I want to preface this by noting that all of this is based only on the early voting, and is based on about a half-dozen polling places in every county in New Jersey; some known as historically Republican districts, some known as historically swing districts, and some known as historically Democratic districts. A trusted source tells me that as of noon, total turnout in the GOP the swing districts in NJ is significantly outpacing turnout in Democrat districts. The turnout ratio is not quite two to one,...

Tom Jensen, a spokesman for the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, has been among the most outspoken. He said the high number of Democrats with districts that are significantly black means such a turnout shift could be disastrous for Democrats. “If what looks like is going to happen in Virginia plays out on a national level, I do think Democrats will lose the House,” Jensen said.

Many psephologists — derived from the word for pebbles, which the ancient Greeks used as ballots — study who wins and loses elections. Lately I’ve been looking more closely at turnout. For we live, though most psephologists haven’t stopped to notice it lately, in a decade of vastly increased voter turnout... Going into the 2008 election, Barack Obama’s strategists recognized that their chances of winning hitherto dependably Republican states hinged on enlarging the electorate. They did that, brilliantly, in Indiana and Virginia, New Mexico and Nevada, and most spectacularly in North Carolina, where turnout rose 20 percent, more than in...

The race between Barack Obama and John McCain was supposed to be about winning the middle. Both candidates embraced the theme of moving from partisan gridlock to seeking bipartisan consensus. Obama's speeches evoked a country that was "not blue states and red states, but more United States." McCain focused on his record of working on both sides of Senate aisle. In contrast to the 2004 election, in which both parties sought to motivate their bases, this campaign was set on the battlefield of undecided voters. The election results, however, record the exact opposite happening. Most undecided voters swung to McCain,...