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Turnout approaches 38 percent
(AllPolitics, November 3) -- All those predictions about lighter-than-normal voter turnout Tuesday failed to materialize.
Preliminary numbers by the Voter News Service indicated a 38 percent voter turnout, only slightly below the 38.8 percent turnout of the last midterm election in 1994. Since 1970, the voter turnout in midterm elections has fluctuated between about 37 percent and 40 percent.
Some people had predicted that negative advertising and the scandal surrounding President Bill Clinton and would turn voters off and depress turnout.
But Curtis Gans, founder of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, which tracks American voter behavior, told The Associated Press local issues dominated the election.
Some states with competitive statewide races, such as Kentucky, experienced greater turnout than usual, said Gans. He said 1998 would represent an anomaly in an overall decline in voting.
"A decline in voter turnout breaks up when there is something interesting to decide," Gans said.
For weeks, political analysts had been calling Election '98 a "turnout election," meaning the outcome probably would hinge on which party was more successful in getting its core supporters to the polls.
President Bill Clinton repeated that mantra Tuesday.
"In large measure it will depend upon who makes the effort
to vote today ... And my only message today is that every
American who has not yet made the decision to go and vote,
should do so," Clinton said.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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