Everyone’s Biggest Opponent in Off-Year Elections? Apathy.

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WRITTEN BY: Jadon George

PHOTO BY: Jadon George

Whether it led the headlines or not, Nov. 7 was a big day for offices – and officeholders – across the country. In Philadelphia, Democrat Cherelle Parker defeated David Oh to become the first woman to lead the City of Brotherly Love, and Republicans scrapped and clawed to keep at least one seat on City Council. Across the state, voters braced for a state Supreme Court election with implications for abortion and election administration. Elsewhere in America, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear and reproductive rights advocates in Ohio defied gravity in pepper-red states as Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin awaited the fate of Republicans in statewide legislative races.

All these candidates faced opponents, with parties, activists, and special interests behind them. For vote canvassers in off-year elections, though, the enemy is often invisible: Apathy.

Aja Brodess, a canvasser for the NAACP, said she saw a lot of experienced voters excited to go to the polls on Tuesday. Newer voters were a different story.

“Some are excited, because it’s going to be their first chance to vote,” Brodess said. “Others are like, ‘It’s not the president, so why does it even matter?’”

Amy Lutson, a web developer for Temple’s Disability Resources and Services, said that she tried to focus her efforts on people who already followed Philly politics. Even so, she got the sense that they didn’t think this year’s races were a big deal.

“When it’s not a presidential election year, there’s just less attention overall,” Lutson said. “The information is a little harder to come by, and the interest isn’t there.”

The numbers bear that out. In 2020, more than 749,000 Philadelphians cast a vote in the presidential election, the highest numbers in city history. In 2022, with the governorship and a Senate seat up for grabs but no race for the White House, that number dipped to 493,529. This year, the AP has total votes in the city under 300,000 – a steep decline, sure, but one that’s on brand with past off-year elections. (When current mayor Jim Kenney romped to re-election four years ago, roughly 292,000 Philadelphians showed up to vote.)

Christian Barnes, a journalism student at Temple, doesn’t believe in voting as it is – he thinks that donors and special interests have the final say in government, anyway. But he said that local elections feel especially small.

“It’s supposed to start at the local level, and then get bigger, I guess, but it doesn’t go anywhere once it gets there,” Barnes said. “Like, yeah, we can vote in all the people for policies we believe in, but what’s it really going to do? And five years down the line, we’ll be complaining about the same stuff.”
It won’t be long before things get bigger again: The Pennsylvania primaries for the presidency, Senate, and Congress are less than six months away.