ShareTuesday Night: A Mixed Bag for Both Parties
Tuesday Night: A Mixed Bag for Both Parties
Tuesday night's primaries are being spun by the White House and many in the media as an unalloyed win for the Democrats. They weren't. The candidates that the parties chose as their nominees on Tuesday do little to alter the electoral calculus for November. The one piece of good news for Democrats is that the enthusiasm gap that had bedeviled them all cycle long seemed to close somewhat on Tuesday.
Colorado was the biggest primary of the night. It is indisputable that the Colorado Governor's race is turning into an absolute debacle for the GOP. But that has little to do with Tuesday night, or with anything the Democrats did. The die was pretty much cast there after Scott McInnis imploded under the weight of a plagiarism scandal and former GOP Representative Tom Tancredo decided to run as a third party candidate.
There was speculation that, had he won the primary, McInnis would have "pulled a Torricelli" and allowed the Republican Party to replace him. Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes seems unwilling to do this. But even if the Republicans had been able to switch nominees, with whom would they have replaced McInnis? The Republican Party of Colorado has been decimated over the past few election cycles, which is why they had turned to a Congressman who retired in 2004 and a Lieutenant Governor (Jane Norton) who left office in 2006 to lead their ticket in the first place. And that still wouldn't solve the Tancredo issue.
The news in the Colorado Senate race was much better for the GOP. While Ken Buck is probably not the Republicans' ideal candidate by any stretch, again, the Republicans in Colorado were in a position similar to that of the Nevada Republican Party (and the Connecticut Republican Party as well). The obvious first tier contenders had lost over the past few election cycles, and the establishment could only coalesce around the hapless Norton. Just as it really isn't clear that Sharron Angle is a much more unpalatable candidate than Sue Lowden would have been, it isn't clear that Buck is a worse candidate than Norton.
Moreover, whatever Buck's short-comings (and he has plenty), it is probably unfair to lump him in with Sharron Angle or Dan Maes. He's spoken out against the "birther" crowd (in some particularly harsh terms) and, perhaps most importantly in the libertarian-ish Mountain West, doesn't seem to be on a mission from God. Buck graduated from Princeton University, is an attorney, and has held elected office in a fast-growing area of the state.
But perhaps most importantly, Senator Michael Bennet remains a seriously wounded incumbent. He represents a swing state, but he has pretty well voted the Democratic party line, even declaring that he would be willing to lose his Senate seat to get the health care bill passed. He is still a wooden speaker, an inexperienced campaigner, and notably, an incumbent with an upside-down approval rating. The only pollster who has found Bennet leading Buck is PPP, whose voter screen presently lets all Obama surge voters through, yet keeps out any new GOP voters.
Not that the Democrats would have been guaranteed a win had they nominated Romanoff. But a Romanoff nomination would have meant that they wouldn't have a candidate who has been in Washington for two years, who is now closely associated with an unpopular President, and who voted for a number of unpopular items as their nominee. The recent open race in Pennsylvania's 12th District, which a novice Democrat won handily, shows how important the ability to distance oneself from Washington can be in this environment.
In Minnesota, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party's choice was defeated by former Senator Mark Dayton. Dayton, you may recall, had barely defeated unpopular Senator Rod Grams in 2000, and was so unpopular by the end of his first term than he retired in the good Democratic year of 2006 rather than face the electorate a second time. The GOP nominee has made some controversial comments and trails in the polls, while a third-party candidate makes it possible for Dayton to win with about 45% of the vote. But the polls badly overstated Dayton's support on Tuesday, and of all the candidate the Democrats could have nominated, they probably chose their least electable.
In the Georgia gubernatorial runoff, Congressman Nathan Deal won his primary against Karen Handel by a few thousand votes. The specter of a split party seems to have been averted by Handel conceding and refusing to request a recount. Yes, Deal has his problems as well. But Democrats have nominated former Governor Roy Barnes, who was the first Democrat in over 100 years to lose a gubernatorial race in Georgia. Barnes has led in some polls, but seems to be topping out at the 46% of the vote he received while losing in 2002. Barnes can beat Deal, but that is far from saying that he is the favorite to do so.
In Connecticut, the Democrats received a good bit of truly good news when the state's voters chose Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy over businessman Ned Lamont. Malloy polls better than Lamont against GOP nominee Tom Foley, and lacks the baggage of Lamont's primary campaign against Joe Lieberman. In the Senate race, former Congressman Rob Simmons, who received two bronze stars in Vietnam, arguably would have provided a nice contrast against Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. But in this year of outsiders, Linda McMahon's lack of political experience and ability to self-finance (and therefore not rely upon donations) could prove an equally nice way to distinguish herself from the four-term Attorney General. McMahon has run a very good campaign, and has narrowed the gap between her and Blumenthal to 10 points.
The best news of the night for Democrats has actually gone unreported. The turnout surge that the GOP had enjoyed in states like Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee did not materialize on Tuesday (unfortunately, the quality of data at the various Secretary of State sites prevents the type of thorough analysis of downticket races I did for these earlier states).
It is true that more Republicans voted in Colorado than Democrats. But that has always been the case in Colorado this decade. In 2002, 189,998 Republicans voted while only 104,603 Democrats voted (both parties had uncontested primaries), a ratio of 1.8 Republicans for every Democrat. In 2004 the ratio of Republicans to Democrats was 1.4, in 2006 it was 1.35 and in 2008 it was 1.23. Last night it was down again, to 1.20. We saw the same effect in Minnesota, where the ratio of Republicans to Democrats was the lowest all decade: .29, compared to .86 in 2002, .52 in 2006 and .57 in 2008 (there was no statewide primary in 2004).
This can't be attributed entirely to the lack of competitive Republican primaries in Minnesota, or the arguably unpalatable choices Republicans faced in Colorado. Even in states like Pennsylvania and Arkansas where Democrats had hotly contested primaries while Republicans had quiet races, the ratio of Republicans to Democrats voting in the primary had exceeded the norm for the decade. Whether Tuesday's turnout results are merely statistical aberrations, or are a part of a larger trend in Democratic enthusiasm remains to be seen.
| Sponsored Links | Related Articles
|
| Search by Race |