GOP no-shows hold local turnout down

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathleen Moore

Many local Republicans apparently didn’t bother to vote Tuesday, giving the Capital District the dubious distinction of being one of the few areas where voter-turnout actually decreased.

Nationally, voters turned out in record numbers. Roughly 133 million voted, representing 62.5 percent of the country’s registered voters, the highest turnout in at least 40 years, according to Associated Press estimates.

But New York State didn’t break any records Tuesday. While a few more Democrats turned out, more than 400,000 Republicans stayed home, Skidmore College associate professor Bob Turner said.

Turner, a professor in the college’s Government Department, compared the state’s preliminary results to those from the 2004 presidential race. In New York state, Democrat Barack Obama received only 20,000 more votes than Democrat John Kerry got in 2004.

“Barack Obama doesn’t do much better than John Kerry,” Turner said. “But what’s really interesting is John McCain does about 400,000 less in New York [than President George Bush received in 2004]. That’s a really big drop-off. Clearly, I think there was a real lack of enthusiasm for Republicans.”