Apartment Dwellers Head to Polls Mobilized On Rent Control

Traditionally, apartment renters’ turnout in elections has been significantly lower than that of homeowners. However, this cohort has won several victories over the last several months on rent control and there are signs that, freshly mobilized, they are taking this momentum to the voting booth this election cycle, according to a report by Apartment List.

“A wave of state and local housing measures have demonstrated increased political activity among renters,” it said in its report. “The degree to which the renter vote can be mobilized nationally could have crucial implications for the 2020 elections.”

So far in this election cycle, renters have shown an appetite for increased political engagement when rallying around local housing issues that speak to their immediate concerns. However, this renter voting coalition remains largely untapped in national politics—but could prove be a boon to candidates that are able to effectively speak to renter concerns. “If renters can be motivated to show up at the polls in higher numbers than they have in the past, their votes have the power to swing both the primaries and the general election,” Apartment List said.

This particular voting bloc tends to skew towards the Democrats. Namely, according to Apartment List, renters vote for Democrats at a rate of more than 2:1. But even among Democrats, renters have more progressive views on the economy than homeowners. For example, 70% of Democratic renters favor increased spending on aid to the poor, compared to 57% of homeowners.

Apartment List also found that renters are likely to favor progressive candidates in the Democratic primaries. In the 2016 primaries, 46% of renters voted for Bernie Sanders, compared to just 34% of homeowners. “With Sanders now emerging as the clear frontrunner among 2020 Democratic hopefuls, mobilizing the renter vote could secure him the nomination,” according to the report.

Although owner vs renter breakdowns are not available for the early voting states, entrance and exit polls have shown Sanders performing well with demographics groups that overlap heavily with the renter population, particularly young voters and low-income voters, Apartment List said.

Whatever the outcome of the primaries, renters could arguably have an even greater impact on the results of the general election, according to the report, with the race swinging on which candidate is able to win the support of independent voters. Renters are significantly more likely than homeowners to fall in that camp.

Indeed, perhaps most interesting of the findings, Apartment List says that if renter turnout had matched homeowner turnout in 2016, Hilary Clinton would have won the general election. “The 2020 elections could be decided by whether or not candidates are able to effectively activate this large untapped voting bloc,” according to the report.