This is the third paper in a series examining aspects of voting in Iowa. This short paper examines Iowa’s turnout in presidential and midterm elections since 2000 with a focus on party and gender. Looking first at registration numbers, women lead men in voter registrations by a fairly consistent margin of about 110,000. Within political categories (Democrats, Republicans, and No Party voters) there are distinct differences in registration. Republicans have the most even division with women leading at the beginning of the period and then men overtaking them and opening a lead of about 18,500 by 2012. Women led No Party voters throughout the period by a fairly consistent margin averaging just over 33,000 voters. This difference was most reflective of the overall registration difference for all Iowa voters on a percentage basis.
Women also led men in registered Democrats. The gap was large at the start of the period at 70,000 voters and widened to nearly 100,000 by the end of the period. In terms of turnout, the differences between men and women were relatively small.
Republican women had the highest turnout percentage for all seven general elections during the period. Republican men come in second in all but 2008 where women Democrats surpassed them by half a percentage point. Women Democrats had a higher turnout percentage than their party’s men in presidential elections, but the men had a slightly higher percentage in two of the three midterm elections. No Party voters, men and women, had much lower turnout percentages in both presidential and midterm elections than either Democrats or Republicans. For the most part, the gap between No Party men and women was larger than it was within the two parties. No Party women had a higher turnout percentage in presidential elections while men took the lead in midterm elections.