Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

2022 primary turnout driven by abortion, Liz Cheney and voting by mail

Wyoming primary

People line up to vote in August's Wyoming primary, where 63 percent of voters participated in a nominating contest that saw Rep. Liz Cheney go down to defeat.

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Every state that relies heavily on voting by mail outperformed the national median during the 2022 primaries – but none of them led in turnout this year. That distinction went to Wyoming, where Rep. Liz Cheney ran in a statewide nominating contest, and Kansas, which put an abortion measure on the primary ballot.

But the seven states that do run vote-by-mail primaries were all in the top 20 – including four of the top seven – according to data collected by the National Vote at Home Institute.

“Voting by mailed-out ballots has lifted primary turnout in states by 5 to 15 percentage points,” said Gerry Langeler, director of research for NVAHI. “And given that primaries often show turnout percentages in the teens or 20s, that can amount to a 25 percent to 50 percent relative lift.”


While making it easier to vote appears to be a significant driver of higher turnout, there are individual contests that can motivate people to vote at an even higher rate.

Cheney, the sole House member from Wyoming, had been a reliable supporter of conservative causes who voted with her party and Donald Trump on nearly every issue. And she had been the third-ranking Republican in the House until being forced from the post because she defended the results of the 2020 election and blamed Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

She then agreed to serve as the top Republican on the committee investigating the insurrection, further cementing herself as an outcast in a party still heavily backing Trump. The three-term lawmaker easily won the nomination in 2018 and 2020 with about 75,000 votes each time. This year, she lost the primary to Harriet Hageman, who got more than 113,000 votes – as turnout soared to 63 percent in Wyoming, up from 52 percent in the 2018 midterm.

While the state does not have a full vote-by-mail system, it does allow anyone to use an absentee ballot and runs an open primary.

Legislators in Kansas had placed a proposed constitutional amendment banning the right to an abortion on the primary ballot, rather than November’s general election ballot. Opponents accused lawmakers of scheduling it that way to take advantage of low voter turnout. But abortion rights supporters were motivated to vote and decisively defeated the amendemnt.

In 2018, the previous midterm election, 27 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the Kansas primary. This year, turnout hit 48 percent.

After Wyoming and Kansas, four of the next five highest turnout states all conduct vote-by-mail elections. Forty percent of registered voters Washington and Hawaii participated in those states' primaries this year.

They were followed by Oregon (38 percent) and Utah (37 percent), which unlike the others do not have open primaries. Sandwiched in between those pairs was Montana, which has an open primary and no-excuse absentee voting. Montana also allows people to request to permanently receive their ballots by mail.

According to NVAHI, turnout among mail voters in Montana was 55 percent, but only 12 percent among in-person voters.

Four other states and the nation’s capital conducted vote-by-mail primaries. (Vermont only uses a full vote-by-mail system for general elections.):

  • California (33 percent).
  • Colorado (32 percent).
  • Washington, D.C. (32 percent).
  • Alaska’s special election for its vacant House seat (28 percent). Turnout for the regular primary, which was not all run by mail, was 32 percent.
  • Nevada (26 percent).

Even though Nevada trailed the others, it still surpassed the national median of 25 percent turnout.

“The turnout in Nevada displays the same thing we saw in Wyoming, but in reverse. Primary turnout still has a major component on ‘how hot are the local races’ in it. Wyoming led the nation in 2022 primary turnout due to the Liz Cheney ‘referendum,’ even without the benefit of mailed-out ballots,” Langeler said. “Nevada voters simply were not that engaged in their primary, but even as the lowest of the vote-at-home states, Nevada beat the national turnout average.”

Efforts are underway by advocates to further expand voting by mail. The D.C. City Council is considering a bill this week to make permanent its temporary move to vote by mail.

Langeler identified a number of states that may expand the use of permanent absentee voting (also known as “single sign-up”). Michigan has a ballot measure to that effect on the November ballot. New Mexico and Maine may revise their systems. And in Connecticut, lawmakers are expected to vote on switching to no-excuse absentee voting.

See the full report.

Read More

The Psychology of Politics

An illustration of people and their unique minds.

Getty Images, Carol Yepes

The Psychology of Politics

Have you ever wondered why so many otherwise reasonable people are completely bananas about politics? We all know plenty of normal and decent folks who spout wacky political views. But it’s not just our neighbors who’ve gone mad. All over the country, Americans pick and choose the facts they want to believe, champion policies they don’t understand, hold contradictory views at the same time, admire immoral politicians, loathe decent ones, and so on.

What’s going on here? And why does it seem to be getting worse?

Keep ReadingShow less
Addressing Economic Inequity Among Domestic Violence Survivors

A person holding a stack of dollar bills that are flying away.

Getty Images, PM Images

Addressing Economic Inequity Among Domestic Violence Survivors

The 2024 film, “Anora,” about a young woman victimized by sex trafficking, recently won five Oscars at the Academy Awards. Perhaps, it is a signal of more awareness and less stigma surrounding the pervasiveness of domestic violence at all levels of society.

The ongoing lawsuits between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni claiming sexual harassment and violence threat allegations around their film, “It Ends With Us,” about a relationship scarred with domestic violence, demonstrates the thin line between real life and on-screen adaptations.

Keep ReadingShow less
Layoffs at the EPA May Impact Federal Funding for Communities

Environmental Protection Agency EPA | Where James works | mccready ...

Layoffs at the EPA May Impact Federal Funding for Communities

WASHINGTON—The federal government laid off more than 60,000 workers in the first two months of 2025, while another 75,000 employees accepted a buyout and voluntarily resigned.

Among those laid off was James Clark, an Environmental Protection Agency employee who lost his job while on his honeymoon. “It’s just very sad to see someone like Elon Musk take a chainsaw on live TV and say what we do doesn’t matter,” said Clark.

Keep ReadingShow less
Congress Avoids a Shutdown But at What Cost?

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on March 14, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Tasos Katopodis

Congress Avoids a Shutdown But at What Cost?

On March 14, the GOP-led Senate passed a stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government running until September 30. The bill’s passage was made possible by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s last-minute reversal—shifting from opposing the measure and advocating for a shorter extension to allowing the bill to advance. His decision was purely tactical: he feared Democrats would be blamed for a shutdown.

Schumer’s move provided the necessary votes to overcome procedural hurdles, effectively thwarting a Democratic filibuster. While Republican support for Trump’s budget was unsurprising, the Democratic leadership’s decision to go along was a stunning concession. It handed the Trump administration a significant victory while further eroding Congress’s budgetary authority, shifting more spending power to the executive branch.

Keep ReadingShow less