“Many conservatives stayed home or voted third party ...”
Do you have some numbers to back that claim up?
Republican turnout was low and voting for 3rd party candidates was up. Both parties saw a huge increase in voter Registration, yet the large increase in voter turnout only occured for the Democrats. Turnout actually decreased for the Republicans.
Dem voter turnout soared to 31.3%.
Rupublican voter turnout was expected to soar based on registrations, but actually DECLINED 1.3% from 2004, to only 28.7%
Many Republicans stayed home.
Here is a link to a report embeded on CNN that discusses voter turnout for the 2008 presidential election:
I would have posted the pdf itself, but I still don’t know how to do that without a link. So click on the word “here” in the sentence “Click here to read the entire report” which follows the 1st paragraph on the page.
The report states:
“A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican oters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout. The percentage of eligible citizens voting Republican declined to 28.7 percent down 1.3 percentage points from 2004.”
“Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 percentage points from 28.7 percent of eligibles to 31.3 percent. It was the seventh straight increase in the Democratic share of the eligible vote since the party’s share dropped to 22.7
percent of eligibles in 1980.”