Small Turnout, Large Problems: An Analysis of Political Participation in American Large City Mayor Elections

Voter turnout statistics in elections across the United States reveal that political participation is too low. The United States Constitution was designed in a way to give the American people effective, elected representation at multiple levels. This can only be fulfilled if people actually turn out to vote. This study seeks to explain political participation at the city level. In city level politics, turnout numbers are even lower than at the state or federal levels. Studies have shown that the average voter turnout in local elections across the country is only at 27% and is falling every year. Using large cities of over 200,000 people as the unit of analysis, my study explains political turnout in terms of demographics, political culture, and institutions. The demographic variables I used were race, income, and education. Of these, only income and education were found to have a significant relationship with voter turnout. Interestingly, income had a strong negative relationship, though I hypothesized a positive one and the literature suggested a positive one. For political culture, I found that cities with a more liberal ideology had higher turnout numbers. I also examined the North-South cultural divide and found that cities in the North have higher turnout. None of the institutional variables studied were found significant. This study found that demographics and political culture had some explanatory power when looking at voter turnout variation. This is contrary to a previous study done by Caren which found that only individual campaign factors had any explanatory power. Introduction In the American political system, a problem has emerged when looking at data concerning voter turnout. Voter turnout is low. This is especially true of mayoral and city council elections. In doing a study of mayoral elections of the largest cities in the United States over the