2020 Presidential Elections: Maine is most politically engaged state while Hawaii is least, finds study
Election Day is now less than 20 days away and politically experts are buried in one key debate: How much will be the turnout in this year’s high-stakes election? In the 2016 presidential election, only 61.4 percent of the country's eligible voters cast their ballots while in the 2018 midterm election, the figure was only 53.4 percent. Will the 2020 election witness better numbers?
To understand the situation on the ground, personal-finance website WalletHub recently published a report on 2020's most and least politically engaged states. The study compared all the 50 states across 11 important indicators of political engagement — from "percentage of registered voters in the 2016 election" to "total political contributions per adult population."
According to the study, Maine has the biggest share of citizens who actually cast ballots in the presidential election four years ago — 72.68 percent, which is than one-and-half times more than that in Hawaii — which has the lowest percentage at 47.27. The Pine Tree State, which has not seen a Republican presidential candidate winning after 1988, also has the highest share of citizens who voted in the 2018 midterm elections — 65.60 percent.
Overall, Maine is the most politically engaged state with 76.93 percentage points. Washington came second with 76.32 followed by Colorado with 71.86, Maryland with 71.70 and Wyoming with 71.31 percentage points.
Hawaii, on the other hand, was found to be the least politically engaged state with only 29.27 percentage points. Mississippi (31.67), New Mexico (32.67) and Alabama (33.52) followed next.
Democratic states more politically engaged than GOP ones
The study also found that Democratic states are politically more engaged than Republican ones with an average ranking of 18.20 (for the GOP, it is 30.37).
Colorado scored more than average in various criteria used in the study and ranked No.1 in voter accessibility policies, according to the study. It finished second in education and third in terms of percentage of voters who cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election. In terms of tax fairness, it finished ninth.
Only Washington and Maine did better than Colorado with second and first place, respectively, according to the WalletHub report. Maryland ended fourth while Wyoming finished fifth.
The election is witnessing incumbent President Donald Trump being challenged by Democratic nominee and former vice president Joe Biden in the race to occupy the White House for a second term starting January 2021.