ELECTION 2024: Iowa primary turnout lowest so far in 21st century

DES MOINES, Iowa (Gray Television Iowa Capitol Bureau) - Turnout for Tuesday’s primaries was especially low, with only 8.3% of registered voters showing up to the polls. Turnout is usually in the 20% range for a primary election, and hasn’t been this low so far in the 21st century.

University of Iowa Political Science Professor Tim Hagle says that may be because in a presidential election year, most issues are looked at through a national lens. “Turnout is going to be somewhat lower but this time it was even lower than we’d expected,” Hagle said.

Hagle says there’s usually a few races on the ballot that drive up turnout. “In a primary especially if you drill down to the congressional districts you might have something around 10%, maybe a shade less, in that. But in terms of statewide, there’s usually enough competition somewhere either again statewide on in the congressional districts that it drives up turnout,” Hagle said.

Hagle says unless voters were dissatisfied with their current lawmakers, there might not have been much of a reason to show up. “Unless you had some particular race that was really driving it, that’s not totally unexpected that it was so low,” Hagle said.

Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald says the turnout may have been low simply because there weren’t many races on the ballot. “The governor’s not on the ballot. The secretary of state’s not on the ballot. So, the top of your ballot no matter what county you lived in was US Representative. Very important race, but it doesn’t have the panache of the US Senate race or president,” Fitzgerald said.

With increasing polarization nationally, is low turnout a sign of Iowans tuning out? “We don’t think that that’s the reason because there were so many contested primaries on the Democratic side in the third district and you look over in eastern and western Iowa, they had Republican primaries for Congress, and these candidates actually went out there and worked,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald says that independent voters who don’t want to register with a party often sit out midterms too. He adds that storms that rolled through the state yesterday could’ve had an effect on people showing up at the polls as well.

Hagle says despite a poor showing in the primaries, he expects voter turnout in the general election in November to be normal. “It’s still going to be something that generates a lot of interest even if people are kind of like “ugh. We don’t like the divisiveness or whatever it happens to be, still it seems to be that it’s important enough that we’ll get a fairly good turnout,” Hagle said.

While turnout in the primary Tuesday was 8% of registered voters, nearly 10 times the amount showed up to vote in the 2020 general election.