Heading into GOTV weekend we can more clearly see the signs of a higher turnout Los Angeles City Election. Ballots received with four days to go are about 20,000 higher than what was seen in the primary. As can be seen in the following chart, this has been a continuation of a trend.
The driving force in this increase is young people with non-Primary voters accounting for about 40% of those under 40. Ethnically, white voters are numerically the largest set of “New” voters, however, as a percentage of the electorate, Latinos have made the largest gains in this part of the calculation.
This will not be a repeat of 2005 where an additional 43% of Latino voters participated in the Runoff, but these voters should be significant. What will be important is the strength of the Election Day vote. And, of course, any increase in “new” voters will be offset by the sometimes large number of voters that participate in the Primary, but not the Runoff.
In total, the following chart shows how turnout is up across ethnic groups somewhat equally, with a shares of the electorate nearly identical to the Primary.
