In recent years, it seems, every federal election gets billed as the most important in our lifetime. Some are saying that about the upcoming 2024 presidential contest. Midterm elections don’t typically generate as much excitement, but some folks even said it about the 2022 midterm elections.
How much did that rhetoric help drive voter turnout in Washington and around the nation?
Newly released U.S. Census Bureau data on the 2022 midterms helps answer that question.
The data shows Washington ranked among the top states for voter turnout, just making it into the Top 10. Even so, when it comes to exercising our civic duty, our neighbors in Oregon could teach us a lesson.
In Washington, about 3.92 million people voted in the 2022 midterms, representing 59.7% of the 5.51 million state residents who are citizens and of voting age. That ranked Washington 10th among the 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Nationwide, about 121.9 million people voted in 2022, representing 52.2% of the 233.5 million Americans who were eligible to vote. This was slightly lower than the 53.4% voter turnout for the 2018 midterm elections, which, it’s worth noting, was also touted by some at the time as the most important election of our lifetime.
Oregon left us — and every other state — in the dust. Seventy percent of those eligible to vote in the Beaver State cast a ballot in 2022, easily ranking No. 1 for turnout. Maine was a distant second at 63.8%, followed by Minnesota at 63.7%.
The lowest voter turnout in the nation in 2022 was in West Virginia, at 38.4%. Indiana was second lowest at 40.9%, followed by Arkansas at 43.9%.
The data also breaks down voter turnout by three factors: gender, race/ethnicity and age.
In general, a higher share of women than men vote, and this was true in the 2022 midterms. Nationally, 53% of women who were eligible to vote cast a ballot, compared with 51.3% of men.
In Washington, a higher share of women than men voted, but the difference was less than 1 percentage point: 60.1% vs. 59.4%.
Some states had a much wider gender gap. Massachusetts and Mississippi stood out with a difference of 6 percentage points in favor of women. But there were also nine states where a higher share of men than women voted in the 2022 election. Indiana had the widest gap in favor of men, at 1.9 percentage points.
In recent decades, white and Black people tend to have a higher turnout in federal elections than Hispanic and Asian people. In the 2022 midterms, white people voted at a significantly higher rate than the other racial/ethnic groups. Nationally, 57.6% of white non-Hispanic eligible voters cast a ballot, followed by Black voters at 45.1%, Asian voters at 40.2% and Hispanic voters at 37.9%.
In Washington, the gap was even greater. White non-Hispanic eligible voters turned out at 68.2%, a far higher rate than any other group. Hispanic voters had the second highest rate, at 46.3%, followed by Asian voters at 39.2% and Black voters at 34.2%.
Age is the single largest predictor of voter turnout in federal elections. The youngest cohort tends to have the lowest participation rate, and the numbers increase with each successive age group.
This pattern held true in 2022. Nationally, just 27.6% of eligible 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the midterms. Among those 65 and older, 66.8% voted.
I was surprised to see the youngest voters in Washington were around the national average for participation in 2022, with 27.8% of those eligible casting a ballot. Wisconsin had the highest voter turnout among this age group, at 49.4%. Oregon was also much higher than Washington, at 44.8%.
But Washingtonian voters 65 and older helped the state save face in 2022, with a participation rate of 78.4% — that ranked fifth highest among the states. Oregon was No. 1, with the voter turnout among this age group at 80.2%.
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