Karthik S wrote:Suraj, two theories or inferences you mention regarding higher turnout: anti incumbency or wave. Looking at anti-incumbency, IMO, this feeling that public has to boot out the incumbent can and will be felt across the country, one can hear and feel disenchantment and disgruntled sentiments among the masses. The other phenomena of a wave, which is polar opposite to first case because the publc believe the incumbent or atleast they believe the incumbent is better than the alternative, will come out in numbers as shows by the turnouts so far. Considering that the rural citizens matter most while considering polling numbers. Elections, like many things, is stochastic rather than deterministic, it's all about probabilities till the actual result comes out. IMO the wave theory has a higher probability than anti-incumbency theory.
I agree with you in theory for most part. The major inconsistency is that:
The other phenomena of a wave, which is polar opposite to first case because the publc believe the incumbent or atleast they believe the incumbent is better than the alternative, will come out in numbers as shows by the turnouts so far.
That is almost never what happens. Usually, a lack of palpable anti-incumbency sentiment (yes I agree, if it's there, it's very easy to tell and is seldom hidden) almost always results in a measurable drop in voter turnout. That's because of the confluence of two reasons - there aren't enough people upset enough to come vote against, and the ones voting in support are reasonably confident of aggregating sufficient votes in favor and winning a second time, that their own lack of enthusiasm also causes a drop in vote share. Let's call it the apathy drop - there's not enough people either happy or angry to make the extra effort.
Instead 2019 shows:
Code: Select all
Ph 2014 2019 Delta
1 68.77% 69.5% +0.73
2 69.62% 69.44% -0.18
3 67.15% 68.40% +1.25
4 63.05% 65.51% +2.46
5 61.7% 63.3% +1.6
These numbers are pretty astonishing for a re-election cycle, where there's no significant rallying around an opposition candidate - there's not even a single talismanic candidate. So if there's no potential opposition to combat, why would those in support be coming out in progressively increasing numbers (delta is generally increasing phase by phase) ? Where is the complacency factor ?
This is why I stated that an increased turnout in a re-election cycle after a previous wave is such a rare thing. If it comes to pass, the last time I recall it happening in a major democracy, is Reagan's back to back wins in 1980 and 1984, the second of which had similar increase in turnout and a ridiculously high majority.
I remember reading Time magazines of that era a few years later, some of my earliest political reading. One had a picture of someone jumping in the air in joy, reflecting the popular zietgiest of happiness with the improvement. Reagan was propelled by a feel good sentiment as the stagflation era of the 1970s came to an end. Paul Volcker's shock therapy at the Fed broke the back of inflation in 1982, and as growth returned, so did public mood in time for 1984 elections. Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg etc were all creating pop culture icons of that era that are still well known. The Olympics in LA were well done. I'm sure there were US based BRFites of that era who can describe it, and how they guessed it would lead to a strong mandate in re-election.
In summary, it is a
very rare political situation that someone gets propelled to power by a wave, and then gets re-elected by another wave. What almost always happens instead is that the person gets comfortably re-elected, but there's a notable reduction in turnout because of the apathy drop. People are not normally motivated to make the same effort twice over, after they've already accomplished the goal once.
But when people are even more motivated after a previous wave, the conclusions are hard to easily make. The reference examples suggest it'll be an even bigger wave, but this sort of thing happens so infrequently that it's hard to say so confidently. If confidence is needed, Katare has it..
