Why Renters Could Have a Bigger Voice in the 2016 Election
Why Renters Could Have a Bigger Voice in the 2016 Election
Lynne Sladky/AP Photo
Renters have historically held little sway in federal elections because they vote in such small numbers. But as the ranks of U.S. renters swell and a bigger share of them are voting, that could be changing.
Renter votes increased 49% between 1996 and 2012, while owner votes only increased 23%, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by Apartment List, a rental listing website.
Nonetheless, just 22% of votes cast in the 2012 election were by renters, according to the analysis. But as the renter population grows, Apartment List estimates that one-third of eligible voters in this election could be renters. Based on historical voting patterns, renters would likely cast about one-quarter of the votes—a small but meaningful increase from the last election.
Historically, renters are said to vote in smaller numbers because they are more transient than owners, so tend to be less invested in the policies that help shape their communities.
Apartment List found that even controlling for length of residence, renters were still less likely to vote. An owner who has been in his or her home for one to two years is still more likely to vote than a renter who has lived there for more than five years.
Renters are also less likely to vote because they tend to be younger, and that age cohort is notoriously difficult to get to the polls. In this election, millennial voters are for the first time poised to match baby boomers as a share of the electorate.
Some of the jump in renter participation in the previous two elections was likely due to a surge of younger voters who came out for Barack Obama in 2008, and to a lesser degree in 2012. There was a slight drop-off in the share of renters who voted between his election in 2008, when 52% of renters voted, and 2012, when 49% of renters voted.
There are good reasons why policy makers have focused on encouraging home ownership. Historically, owning a home has been the best way for middle-class families to build wealth and save for retirement. But affordable-housing advocates argue that has come at the expense of ignoring a growing rental crisis.
“You notice in [Hillary] Clinton and [Donald] Trump’s stump speeches, they don’t talk about renters very much. Everyone talks about the American dream and home ownership,” said Andrew Woo, director of data science at Apartment List.
The number of cost-burdened renters—those who spend more than 30% of their incomes on rent—has risen by 3.6 million since 2008, to a historic high of 21.3 million in 2014, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. In the meantime, the number of cost-burdened owners has declined by 4.4 million since 2008 to 18.5 million.
A national campaign called Make Room was started last year by Enterprise Community Partners Inc., an affordable-housing group, to help encourage renters to be more politically engaged. Likewise, former real-estate executive Ron Terwilliger, a Republican, started a foundation last year designed to press policy makers on rental affordability.
These groups argue that current federal policy, such as the mortgage-interest deduction, favor homeowners even though renters are the most financially burdened in the current economy.
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