With last week’s primary ballots mostly counted, I think it’s safe to take a look at voter turnout and speculate how it might have been influenced by the yawning “voter enthusiasm gap” that Republicans are counting on to sweep them to victory this November. And in fact voters turned out in far greater in Republican areas of the state than they did in dark blue King County, a fact that would seem to bode well for the Part of No this November.
But…
While King County barely turned out 37 percent of registered voters, compared to almost 42 percent in the rest of the state, that differential is pretty typical for Washington state in even-year primary elections. (Odd years are a different beast, when competitive city and county races sustain voter interest in King, while much less is at stake in most of the rest of the state.) For example, in 2006, King County’s primary voter turnout trailed the rest of the state by 36 percent to 40 percent, and in 2008, when Democrats arguably held the enthusiasm edge, the turnout gap was even greater, 35 percent to 46 percent.
What does that mean for November? Who knows? For one, such a top-line analysis does nothing to evaluate who turned out within each county, though it is reasonable to assume from various contests that the electorate trended a bit more Republican than usual. Neither does the primary electorate tell us a lot about what the electorate will necessarily look like in November, though historically, Democrats tend to turn out in higher percentages in the general, though slightly less so during non-presidential years.
But what I can confidently say is that the primary turnout differential itself provides little or no evidence of an impending Republican wave.
There’s not much of, if any, “enthusiasm gap.” There’s no Tea Party Revolution. The much ballyhooed throw the bums out movement isn’t there. In other words, every mime the MSN tried to sell us about this election was a crock of shit.
It’s just another uneventful midterm.
And adding to my post @#1 despite what we read on the internet (it’s a series of tubes, btw) and saw on TV Sarah Palin wasn’t and wont be a force to be reckoned with.
Were there any major items on the Primary ballot? Murray’s advancement was preordained and I used my ballot for entertainment purposes by voting for Clit Diddler. Now he has a few more votes to use to bash Dino Rossi over the head. And that is fun to watch.
I have faith in Senator Murray’s overwhelming dominance, but my sort of evil tactics have backfired. Bill Clinton ran for reelection as Governor of Arkansas in 1980. Between bouts of visible public arrogance, manufactured Republican scandals, and discomfort with Hillary* (then known as Hillary Rodham), many voters decided to teach Bill Clinton a lesson, assuming that he had the election in the bag. Enough people (but not me) voted this way and swept Frank White into office. And nobody was more astonished by this turn of events than Frank White.
But Old Frank had a sense of humor. Robert “Say” McIntosh a Little Rock restaurant that made the best Sweet Potato Pie anywhere. Brother Say was also inclined toward the dramatic. To protest some action by the Governor, he dug a hole on the front lawn of the Arkansas State Capitol early one morning, erected a wooden Cross, and then climbed on the Cross and tied himself to it.
Meanwhile, Frank White had gone to the airport in his limo to pick up a visiting delegation from the Chinese Government. As they drove by the Capitol, he saw the Chinese looking out the window at Say Mcintosh up on the cross. They turned to Governor White in astonishment and asked what this man had done to deserve such a punishment. His response: “He displeased me.”
Frank White was as one-term break between Clinton Administrations, but compared to Mike Huckabee he was the best Governor in History.
* Quotes: I aint voting for that boy Clinton. He caint even get her to take his last name. What kinda name is Rod-Ham anyway – is it Jewish? I bet shes a Jew. That would explain everything. Why dont she never wear no makeup? I bet she dont own no bra. How can that boy let her run around looking like that. She’s a lawyer, Eh? Well, she’s just taking a job away from a man who needs that job to feed his family. Hell, I bet that she caint cook. That baby aint even his. You know, she aint pretty.
@3
And I’m sure the MSM in 1980 wrote Clinton’s political eulogy, right?
Well, we won’t have him to kick around anymore.
Me too!
I’m sure this will hold like nearly other mid-term after a new President. The party in power will lose some seats, but likely not a whole lot. There doesn’t seem to be any consistent theme at all, even the “anti-incumbent” rant doesn’t hold. Stogy old super-insider John McCain won. The Palin backed Alaska primary candidate (Miller) may win, but only by a hair (no sweeping victory) over his “pro-choice” Republican opponent (no surprise there). There you go you say? But in Alaska’s other Congressional race, for their one House seat, the incumbent (Young) easily beat his challenger.
Just nothing interesting. Normal run of the mill mid-term so far. YAWN
P.S. I kind hope Miller does win and keeps to his promise (no chance) to stop spending on Alaska. Alaska isn’t just a welfare state, they’re #1 out of all 50 states in pork-barrel spending per-capita (1).
See, traditionally to get elected there, like the late Ted Stevens, you had to “pretend” to hate Washington spending but then grab grab grab all the money you can (from the lower 48) back home to your district, for things like the bridge to nowhere…while that project was canceled they kept the money, LOL.
So if Mr. Miller can buck the entire Alaska electorate which “says” they want to stop spending and actually HOLD them to it…and deny them all their federal projects, GO FOR IT I say.
(1) http://www.usatoday.com/news/w.....arks_N.htm
Slightly OT, this is funny:
@8 McKenna is probably feeling like he’s stepped in it, he knows it stinks, but he can’t shake it off his shoe.
According to the local news, voter turnout was the highest its been since 1970 for a non-presidential election year.
go ahead and try to spin that.
The only impact I’m seeing, on a national basis, is that in a few areas which are already bright-red anyway, some Tea Party candidates are upsetting their incumbent Republicans in the primaries.
So even if they win in the general elections, the only difference is that a different Republican will be filling the seat.
What the Republicans DID manage to do with their Tea Party strategy was to revive the morale of their far-right base. In late November 2008 it looked like the Republicans might go the way of the Whig Party, and they’ve managed to avoid that – for now.
But the general elections are another matter. There’s still lots of time between now and November. If the economy isn’t getting better fast, at least it’s significantly better than it was in the winter of 2009, and it’s certainly not getting worse. We’ve temporarily hit a plateau, in part because Republican obstructionism cost of months of time which could have been used to right the economy. But I think when voters realize that it’s a choice between the Democrats and the guys who got us into this hole in the first place, then the election will turn out alright. The Republicans might pick up a seat or two here and there – the opposing party always does in an off-year election – but not enough to make a difference.
The general election has plenty of reasons to turn out and vote. Don’t take Murray’s re-election for granted. That is a sure way to lose.
And the ballot is full of corporate initiatives, spending millions to convince you to support their interests and have more of the tax burden stay on middle and low income folks.
I-1053 needs a resounding NO vote! Eyman’s measure only made it on the ballot this year with the help of BP and other big oil companies and big banks and other corporate interests that don’t want to pay their fair share.
Requiring a 2/3 vote for raising revenue is unconstitutional. Article II, Section 22 of the State Constitution says the Legislature shall pass legislation by a majority vote. You can not amend the Constitution by an initiative.
Vote NO on 1053. Uphold our State Constitution.
Re 11
If the economy is getting better you couldn’t prove it to the average voter. The average voter is probably still worried about his or her job. They probably aren’t spending much money, and statistically are pulling retirement savings at record rates to tread water. They probably worry about the value of their home given July housing numbers. They probably worry about the education of their kids given massive state cutbacks in heavily democrat states like California and Washington.
I can’t really say I think this will be helpful to your party, quite frankly. The economy is the one thing that got his holiness the president elected. His failure to do anything about it won’t help him or his party.
Fascinating expose of where the Teabaggers’ and contemporary GOP ideology is coming from. It is amazing how these people have been manipulated. Forget about any independent thought; they have simply been bought. Our trolls are the direct product of a couple billionaire brothers:
http://www.newyorker.com/repor.....rentPage=1
“Ideas don’t happen on their own,” Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, a Tea Party advocacy group, told me. “Throughout history, ideas need patrons.” The Koch brothers, after helping to create Cato and Mercatus, concluded that think tanks alone were not enough to effect change. They needed a mechanism to deliver those ideas to the street, and to attract the public’s support. In 1984, David Koch and Richard Fink created yet another organization, and Kibbe joined them. The group, Citizens for a Sound Economy, seemed like a grassroots movement, but according to the Center for Public Integrity it was sponsored principally by the Kochs, who provided $7.9 million between 1986 and 1993. Its mission, Kibbe said, “was to take these heavy ideas and translate them for mass America. . . . We learned we needed boots on the ground to sell ideas, not candidates.” Within a few years, the group had mobilized fifty paid field workers, in twenty-six states, to rally voters behind the Kochs’ agenda. David and Charles, according to one participant, were “very controlling, very top down. You can’t build an organization with them. They run it.”