If a large percentage of people are influenced to not participate, then the remaining set is a smaller group to mislead in one political direction or another.

More participation makes it harder to influence enough voters in a single direction to make a significant difference in outcomes.

And, at least in US politics, my experience is that most candidates do not stand on a single issue but rather a broad spectrum of political ideology. I think it would be pretty rare for all of the candidates to have no difference in alignment with you on any of the hundreds of issues at play. Especially if you are participating in primary elections which tend to have a greater diversity of positions.