Making history and voting with outrage may drive Californias to record turnout

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

By George SkeltonCapitol Journal Columnist

Sept. 16, 2024 3 AM PT

SACRAMENTO — Here’s one election prediction from a nonpartisan expert: Californians will be so enthused about Kamala Harris they could vote in record numbers.

A huge Democratic turnout, of course, would help the party’s down-ticket candidates, especially in pivotal congressional races that could determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

But what’s so exciting about Harris?

First, she’s a fellow Californian, says Mark Baldassare, veteran pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California. There’ll be home state pride.

Second — and more important — she would be the first woman president. Voters will “want to be part of history,” he says.

So, besides electing a Democrat and retiring the despicable Donald Trump, Californians will be extraordinarily motivated to vote for Harris, Baldassare predicts, because “she’s somebody from their own state and they can vote for the first woman president.”

OK, let’s look at history.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential nominee of a major party. She lost to Trump while carrying California. But the turnout here was mediocre for a presidential election: 75% of registered voters.

California has produced two presidents, both Republicans: Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Each carried the state.

There was a very high turnout — roughly 86% — when Nixon was elected president in 1968. But that resulted largely from public fury over the Johnson administration’s waging of the Vietnam War and weariness with civil unrest.

There was a good California turnout when Reagan was elected in 1980 — 77% — but it wasn’t exceptional.

Those were ancient times for ballot casting, however. It’s super simple these days to vote in California — the direct opposite of voter suppression in red states.

The ease here has led to about 22 million Californians currently being registered to vote — 82% of the state’s eligible population.

Voter registration is practically automatic. The process is triggered whenever you deal with the DMV or fill out a change of address form. Every registered voter is mailed a ballot with a postage-free return envelope. There’s plenty of time to fill it out. Voting begins a month before election day.

And there’s zero evidence of any significant voter fraud, despite MAGA conspiracy theories and lies.

Not just Democrats, but “Republicans also are going to vote in big numbers,” Baldassare predicts. “They want to make noise — go out and make a statement.”

GOP voters will be motivated by Harris, too — but in a reverse way than Democrats.

Voters wear face coverings while waiting in line to vote in the 2020 U.S. elections

Plus, citizens will be inundated with media campaign coverage commanding their attention.

“We’re set up for a historic turnout,” Baldassare asserts.

In a PPIC blog last week, Baldassare noted there was a record turnout of Californians — 17.8 million — in 2020. That’s when Joe Biden sent then-President Trump packing — whining and lying about the vote count.

The California turnout represented roughly 81% of registered voters and 71% of eligible adults. The record of votes cast “could be shattered” on Nov. 5, Baldassare wrote.

But two other political experts I called are skeptical.

“We’re going to see a good turnout, but I’m not sure it’s going to be as much as 2020,” says Mindy Romero, director of the USC Center for Inclusive Democracy.

She doubts California voters will care much that Harris is homegrown: a former San Francisco district attorney, state attorney general and U.S. senator.

“People will be paying more attention to the race because it’s Harris running,” Romero says. “But I don’t know how much that will be because she’s a Californian. Most Californians know her as vice president, not a Californian.”

Harris, I suspect, is getting a lot of positive attention because she isn’t the aging Biden. And Democrats, who outnumber Republicans nearly 2-to-1 in California, are drawn to the race because the outrageous Trump is impossible to ignore.

Romero also cites a 2020 motivator for many Democrats that isn’t nearly as intense today: The Black Lives Matter movement spurred by the murder of an African American man, George Floyd, by a white policeman in Minneapolis, Minn. It resulted in nationwide protests, some of them turning ugly.

“That politicized the environment and highlighted racial and justice issues,” she recalls.

And unlike this year, Romero adds, lots of public and private money was spent across America in 2020 encouraging people to vote because election officials feared pandemic lockdowns would cause a low turnout. But the opposite happened.

Voters turned out in record numbers “because of the COVID lockdowns,” says Paul Mitchell, an election numbers cruncher who runs Political Data Inc.

He explains: “Remember how bored we were? People were taking their ballots to drop-off boxes because it was the first time they’d been out of the house in a week.”

“There’ll be a high turnout this year,” Mitchell says, “but it’s hard to say it’s going to be higher than 2020. I think 80% is the ceiling.”

He predicts a record turnout of young people, however, because more have registered. “We’ve seen a big surge in voting registration,” he says.

“We’ve done everything any state can do to make voting easier.”

Well, not quite, he adds.

“If we could cast votes online, that would be a big deal,” he says. “But people are still freaked out about [potential hacking]. It’s kind of crazy. We trust banking online. But we’re stuck with our voting system.”

Yes, but it will enable a large California voter turnout starting in early October — lopsidedly for native daughter Harris.