Common wisdom suggests that parents are more established, stable, invested in their communities, schools, home values, and naturally more likely to vote.
An analysis from PDI supports the last presumption, sometimes.
Most parents, as identified through commercial datasets linked to the voter file, out-perform the rest of the electorate in General Elections – as much as +5% for parents of teenagers and +12% for parents of teens who are registered as Permanent Absentee Voters (PAV).
But, these same parents consistently under-perform the rest of the electorate in Primary Elections – as much as -8% for parents of toddlers, and -16% for single parents of toddlers. One could infer that these parents, with family, work, and other competing priorities, are making the strategic decision that Generals are the elections that matter… or the primaries are not debating the issues that are most important to them.
As can be seen in the chart below, the under-performance in primaries is strongest for parents of toddlers, but improves as kids get older. Interestingly, the parents with 1-2 kids have lower voting performance than those with 3 or more kids, maybe because of those built-in babysitters.
The following table looks at parents overall, then provides breakouts for single parents, PAVs and poll voters.
