Gene Balk at The Seattle Times has crunched the numbers and the good news is that national voter turnout was the highest in decades during the 2018 midterms. It was impressive in the Seattle area, too, and Balk credits President Trump for riling up enough Americans that overall midterm participation in this country hit a high not seen in four decades.
The bad news, at least for younger people in the Seattle area who want a government responsive to their concerns: in this region, fewer than 40 percent of voters under the age of 30 cast ballots in 2018.
Among people age 65 and up in this region, turnout was close to 80 percent.
This is not a new phenomenon, but the fact that older voters turned out at twice the rate of younger voters—even in Seattle, and even in the Trump era—does not bode well for those who want all levels of the government to be laser-focused on things like climate change and student debt relief.
"Seattle also ranks very high for flakiness," Balk writes. "Nearly one in five non-voters say they simply forgot. Only Jacksonville, Florida, had a higher percentage of absent-minded people in its electorate."