Overview

Across the United States, there are elections for critical federal- and state-level offices every two years. A large majority of these are preceded by primaries where voters select candidates to represent each of the major political parties on the ballot for the general election. However, voter turnout for primaries tends to be much lower than for general elections.

In U.S. elections since 2000, the average turnout rate for primary elections is 27% of registered voters. The highest turnout for a primary during a midterm election year in the past two decades was 2022, which had 29% turnout. In contrast, the average turnout rate for general elections is 61% of registered voters. This means that, on average, more than half of general election voters do not vote in primary elections.

Primaries are a key part of the democratic process, enabling engaged voters to choose which candidates they want to send on to the general election, and increasing candidates’ chances to potentially hold office. Low voter participation in primary elections means that a smaller subset of voters plays an outsized role in choosing our officials, by shaping what general election ballots look like. This year, primary elections were particularly important, given the number of Election Deniers running for the critical statewide offices that oversee our elections—governor, secretary of state, and attorney general.

Methodology

Below we present historical turnout rates from 2000-2022 for both primary and general elections in states where there is a 2022 election for a statewide position (governor, secretary of state, and attorney general).

For our purposes, voter turnout rate is computed as the percent of total votes cast divided by the total number of registered voters; this is the method most secretaries of state use to calculate voter turnout. This statistic does not reflect all potential voters, since it excludes eligible voters who have not registered to vote. An alternate way of estimating turnout is to divide the total votes cast by the Citizen Voting Age Population (or the total number of potential voters).

We opted to use only the portion of voters that are registered, to highlight that there were no additional hurdles (i.e., registering to vote) that kept voters from casting a vote in a primary election. This shows us that turnout rates for primaries are low even among registered voters and would be even lower among all potential voters.

The data below represents 32 of the 40 states (including the District of Columbia) with primary elections for statewide offices this cycle. This encompasses all relevant states where data was available from a secretary of state’s webpage. Some states only have partial data because they do not report turnout data back to 2000, while others have some missing years between 2000-2022.


Overall Turnout in Primary and General Elections since 2000

In this graph, we show the mean turnout rate per state for primary and general elections since 2000. On average, the primary turnout rate for all of these states combined was 27.2%, while the general election turnout rate was 60.9%. This means that less than half of the voters that cast a ballot in the general election turned out for the primary.



Below we look at the average turnout for both primary and general elections by election year. The rates have remained steady, with presidential election years having higher turnout than midterm election years. The highest turnout for a primary during a presidential election year was 2020, with 33.29% turnout. The highest turnout for a primary during a midterm election year was 2022, with 29% turnout.


The 2022 Primary Turnout

The 2022 primaries had the highest turnout in a primary election in a midterm election year since 2000, with 29%. It was also higher than the turnout in most of the presidential election year primaries (only 2016 and 2020 had higher primary turnouts).

While this higher turnout is noteworthy, the turnout did not increase by a large percentage in most states. The average turnout from 2002-2018 for primary elections during midterm election years was 25.5% and in 2022 it was 29%.

There are, however, some states where turnout in primaries this year was much higher than expected. Notably, Kansas had a 22% increase in voter turnout from the primary in 2018 (the last midterm election). This is the largest increase in a midterm election in this period, and the highest turnout in any primary (including presidential years) that Kansas has had since 2000. Pennsylvania had a 12.5% increase over the 2018 midterm, almost matching turnout for the 2020 primary, a year that had record breaking turnouts. Georgia also saw an increase of 8.7% greater turnout than in 2018 and matched their 2020 primary turnout.

Overall, this trend predicts that the November 2022 midterm will have slightly higher turnout than the 2018 midterm, and we may see higher turnout in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania, and states where races are tight and where issues like reproductive health care continue to motivate voters.

Turnout by States 2000-2022

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Nebraska

Nevada

New Mexico

North Dakota

Ohio

Oregon

Pennsylvania

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Washington

Wisconsin