The coverage of this year’s Vermont elections — including, often, my own — generally ignores one factor that will outweigh any of the issues or trends we explore ad nauseam. This includes (1) the much-anticipated tax revolt, which may or may not be a reality, (2) the Barons of Burlington’s plot to kill the state Senate supermajority, and (3) the Democrats’ failure to mount a serious challenge to Gov. Phil Scott. Or anything else you could name.

I refer to the national election. The race for president and the battle for Congressional majorities. This cannot be ignored in any assessment of Vermont’s elections.

There is always a substantial jump in turnout between a midterm election and the ensuing presidential. Since 1994, the smallest jump was between 1994 and 1996, with a 16.7% increase. The biggest was between 2012 and 2014, with a 38.8% increase. The average midterm:presidential increase in that period was 24.1%.

Not all cycles are created equal. 2012:2014 was an outlier on each end, with high turnout for Barack Obama’s re-election followed by 2014’s plunge due to a lackluster gubernatorial contest between mortally wounded incumbent Peter Shumlin and dismally bland challenger Scott Milne.

(Brief digression. The 2014 election was the outlier of all outliers, as Shumlin suffered a catastrophic drop in support.. He’d won 170,749 votes in 2012 — and only 89,509 in 2014. Milne, who very nearly beat Shumlin, actually drew 24,000 FEWER votes in 2014 than losing Republican Randy Brock had in 2012.)

But while not all cycles are created equal, there’s a clear and obvious pattern. A lot more Vermonters go to the polls when the presidency is at stake than when it’s not.

As someone who’s covered Vermont politics for twelve-plus years, I can tell you that my beat is a niche product. Most people don’t care about politics, and those who do are far more engaged on the national level than on anything happening in and around our B.L.S.

This will be at least as true in 2024 as in the past, because the national election is all firecrackers and noisemakers, while Vermont’s is a muffled thud. This will benefit the Democrats more than the Republicans because (1) there are a lot more potential votes on the left than the right, and (2) the Vermont Democratic Party has huge advantages over the VTGOP in organization and resources, and will be able to mount a much more effective GOTV operation.

The best model for 2024 is the last presidential contest between Biden and Donald Trump in 2020, which saw a massive, record-breaking turnout in Vermont. 370,968 votes were cast in 2020, over 50,000 more than in the previous presidential election of 2016. The dynamics are similar this year.

The 2020 turnout was turbocharged by the introduction of universal mail-in ballots, which made it much simpler for people to vote. This will be true again this year. Indeed, at least 60,000 Vermonters have already voted according to the Secretary of State’s office. It’s not even mid-October and we’re 16% of the way to 2020’s all-time record.

I’m not saying we’ll break the record. But we don’t have to. Whether total turnout is 370,000 or 360,000 or 340,000, it’s going to be massive. (The pre-2020 record was set in 2016, with 320,467 votes cast. But that was before universal mail-in ballots were instituted.) We might see Republican gains in the Legislature, but they’re more likely to be marginal than decisive. There will be voters motivated by taxes or the Clean Heat Standard or name your alleged legislative overreach slash accomplishment, but there will be a lot more turning out to elect Kamala Harris — or defeat Donald Trump, if you prefer.

Just keep that in mind when you consume any pre-election punditry.