Posted on 06/26/2005 8:20:21 PM PDT by flixxx
Reading the signs from voter turnout By Michael Barone
To judge from the mainstream media, George W. Bush and the Republicans are in trouble. Bush's job ratings are lower–though just a bit lower–than they were during the 2004 campaign. Congress's job rating has fallen sharply since the beginning of the year. The mainstream media have been giving lavish coverage to the Democrats' pummeling of Bush and the Republicans on issue after issue–the struggle over confirmation of appellate federal judges, the fight over the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations, the supposed ethics problems of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the charges by Amnesty International and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin that the Guantanamo Bay prison camp is another gulag. Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean has been lambasting the Republicans in what even some Democrats consider extravagant language.
Yet polls are one thing and election results are another–as the 2004 campaign showed. And one thing the polls can't measure is turnout. In the 2004 election, turnout proved to be crucial. Total turnout was up 16 percent from 2000–a historic increase. John Kerry received 16 percent more votes than Al Gore did in 2000. George W. Bush received 23 percent more votes than he did four years before. The mainstream media devoted much attention to Democratic turnout efforts–a legitimate story–and in fact the Democratic turnout drive was very successful. But the Bush Cheney '04 turnout drive, to which the mainstream media gave very little coverage, was even more successful.
In my view, the big question about the 2006 and 2008 elections will once again be turnout. To judge from the mainstream media coverage in 2005, you might conclude that Democrats, frothing with hatred of George W. Bush, will turn out in large numbers while disheartened Republicans will not.
But the actual election results seem to tell another story. I am referring to the results in the New Jersey and Virginia primary elections held earlier this month. In both primaries, more Republicans voted than Democrats.
In New Jersey, which favored Kerry over Bush by a 53-to-46 percent margin, 298,000 voted in the Republican primary for governor and 229,000 voted in the Democratic primary for governor. That means that Republicans accounted for 57 percent of the total turnout. New Jersey is a party registration state; about 33 percent of registered Republicans voted and about 20 percent of registered Democrats. These results should be used with some caution, however, because the Republicans had a serious contest, between Douglas Forrester and Bret Schundler, while the Democratic nominee, Sen. Jon Corzine, had no serious competition. Nonetheless, this is not a particularly good omen for the Democrats in November.
In Virginia, which does not have party registration, the only office for which both parties had contests was lieutenant governor. Some 169,000 Virginians voted in the Republican primary and 114,000 in the Democratic primary: Sixty percent of the two-party vote was cast for Republicans in a state that Bush carried by a 54-to-45 percent margin. Republicans cast 59 percent of the votes in the three congressional districts in Northern Virginia, which Kerry carried, and 60 percent of the vote in the other eight districts. Democrats got the lion's share of the vote in the black-majority Third District and the Arlington-Alexandria Eighth District, the two districts John Kerry carried; they also got 59 percent of the votes in the Ninth District in southwestern Virginia. But in five districts, 75 percent or more of the votes were cast for Republicans. And in the suburban Northern Virginia 11th District, which Bush carried by only a 50-to-49 percent margin, 62 percent of the votes were cast for Republicans.
This does not ensure that the Republicans will sweep Virginia in the November 2005 Virginia election, but it is a good sign for them–and was a pleasant surprise to some knowledgeable Republican insiders. More important, the Virginia results and perhaps the New Jersey results suggest that the balance of enthusiasm, which worked for Republicans in 2004, may still be working in their favor—mainstream media coverage to the contrary notwithstanding.
it is possible that liberals have become so demoralized, they ownt vote...i wouldnt count on it however.
Does anyone know what Rove plans to do after 2008?
In 98, coattails mattered since Engler beat Fieger by 25%. In 02, there were no coattails at all in Granholm's 4% win.
That would not be correct.
Bush nationalized the state elections in '02 with a platform that centered around WOT, judges, and tax cuts. By nationalizing the elections people that might opt Dem locally went Republican. In the '04 elections we saw that nationalization of the elections continue, and it is largely why '06 is considered to be a bad year for Dems even though midterms are supposed to be good for the party out of power. By making these referendums on the head of the ticket and the platform states that vote Rep are now far more likely to vote for a Rep in the Senate, and vice versa.
In '04 specifically Bush's coattails helped in Alaska, South Dakota, and a few other states that were very close. Some of these candidates were slated to lose, and barely squeaked by as it was. The high turnout for Bush, and '02 the nationalization of the platform, helped coast many of them over the finish line.
But New Jersey has been a solid blue state recently. Perhaps the understanding of how corrupt the Democrats (Torricell, McGreavy) are has sunk in there.
Barone is about the only one I will listen to concerning the breakdown of electorates, and forthcoming analysis. Election night he was particularly impressive, not being fooled by the exit polls. Breaking it down with fact.
He had said 2004 was his last election but he has since back tracked on that.
He appears to want to get out of politics all together, and retire and do the whole book writing, occasional TV appearance thing.
Most folks though think that he may wind up working for Senator Frist (given that the 2 of them are actually friends).
I'm hoping he stays somewhere in the RNC somehow.
The top 10 states that had the highest increases in voter turnout all went to Bush in 2004.
The bottom 10 states with the lowest increase in turnouts, 7 out of 10 of them went to John Kerry.
Including NYS which actually had a decrease in voter turnout in 2004 as compared to 2000.
I've heard cali had the same thing but couldn't verify that one.
IMO, this is not a signal that N.J. will flip soon but rather conservatives/Republicans are getting more active even in solid blue states. That bodes well.
Just as the Dems cannot rely on winning only 17 states to take the W.H., Reps shouldn't abandon "blue" states either. The key is to activate the people in those states to turn out. Motivate them to campaign to go door to door, to engage in grassroot activities to build on their numbers within the state so one day it will be competitive.
The MSM happily blathers on and on about how the rhetoric of Howard Dean, Dick Durbin, et. al. energizes the Dim base, about how the Dims are so "unified" thanks to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, how everyone is so in love with Hillary that we may as well just go ahead and coronate her now and save the bother of an election in 2008.
I think all this is energizing and unifying the Republican base instead. Even with all the discontent with President Bush among so many in the GOP, they take one look at the nutburgers and looney tunes on the Dim side, listen to their wild-eyed conspiracy theories and rants about how they hate everyone except hard-core communists and Islamic terrorists, and demonstrate their views not by making stupid puppets and chanting worn-out slogans, but by quietly turning out in huge numbers to vote for GOP candidates.
It is a mistake to use primaries to extrapolate voter interest. In VA there was a primary for Republican candidates for Governor but the rat candidate was unopposed. This explains the greater Republican turnout. There was no compelling reason for rat voters to care about the primary because the top ticket was already decided for them.
If you look at the results for the Ohio state house district 57 (the only one where there was more than one candidate for both the rats and Republicans) you find the rat primary voters exceeded Republican primary voters. Does this mean the rats are all fired up or is district 57 a rat leaning district.
In 1996 Clinton ran unopposed for President on the rat ticket. He received 12,884 votes in the March 9, 1996 rat primary. Dole, Forbes, alexander, ect received 347,482 votes in the February 27, 1996 primary. Dole alone got over a 100,000 votes. I didn't look up if Clinton beat Dole in AZ, but I can guarantee that Dole didn't get 10 times more votes than Clinton...as the primary might have indicated to Barone.
In 1996 Clinton ran unopposed for President on the rat ticket...IN AZ.
small edit.
You will find this trend of disinterest in uncontested primaries all over the USA. Here are the rest of the primary results in 1996 http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe1996/presprim.htm
I agree...I have liked Barone for a number of years now, but on election night 2004, he was easily the best analyst around.
Can't go wrong with a Barone post.
Does anyone know what Rove plans to do after 2008?
He'll rove around a lot.
Michael Barone *ping*
If Barone missed that, it's extremely sloppy research for one who's reputedly such a good analyst. OTOH if he knew it and ignored it to make his point, that's striking in its intellectual dishonesty.
There was no contest in Dem primaries in NJ. Why would people turn out? They already knew that Corzine will win.
Barone addressed Once-Ler's points in his article.
And I don't know that you could really call the Virginia GOP gov primary contested. The fact that there were two names on the ballot doesn't mean the result was even remotely in doubt. It's been a Kilgore-Kaine race for over a year.
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