Wherein I wonder if Democratic turnout can stay as high as it has been so far, and ask for ideas on how to keep it higher than Republican turnout--Chris
In
the MyDD / Courage Campaign candidate memo, we argue that low turnout among independent voters will be a major obstacle facing many Democratic candidates this year.
Our post-primary poll in CA-50 suggested that voters who were not registered either as Republicans or Democrats mad up only 18% of the electorate, despite non-Democratic and non-Republican voter registration in the district making up 25.8% of the district as a whole. However, as low as 18% would already be, I feel that there is strong evidence to indicate that non-Democratic and non-Republican voter turnout in the district was even lower than that back on June 6th. The most obvious evidence comes from
the San Diego county elections results page for the June 6th elections.
More after the flip.
According to this website, there were 158,033 total votes counted in the CA-50 special election between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray. The website also records 76,896 votes cast in the CA-50 Republican primary, and 57,920 votes cast in the CA-50 Democratic primary. That leaves only 23,217 votes in the Busby-Bilbray contest that were not cast in either the Republican or Democratic primaries in the district. Now, 23,217 is only 14.69% of 158,033. Thus, as I will explain in the next paragraph, in the best-case scenario, non-Democratic and non-Republican turnout in CA-50 was only 14.69% of the electorate despite making up 25.78% of the registered voter pool.
Now,
California has semi-open primaries, which allows unaffiliated voters to cast a ballot in a primary (or at least, I think I have this correct now). However, I still think the total votes from each primary are useful, since they serve as a type of partisan self-identification exit poll. Among voters in the run-off election, 36.65% self-identified as Democrats by choosing to vote in the Democratic primary. Another 48.66% self-identified as Republicans by choosing to vote in the Republican primary, and a final 14.69% self-identified with neither party by choosing to opt out of both major primaries. Interestingly, these numbers are nearly identical to
the final Survey USA pre-election poll in the district which found a narrow Bilbray lead. Survey USA had the likely voter pool at 49% Republican, 34% Democratic, and 17% Independent / Other.
On balance, the number of Republican self-identifiers may have been slightly inflated due to the Republican primary being far more contested than the Democratic primary. Hell, I know that had I been in the voting booth that day, I would have not only cast a vote for Francine Busby, but I also would have been very tempted to vote for Eric Roach on the Republican side instead of Francine Busby on the Democratic side, in the hopes that Roach would somehow win the Republican primary. In the CA-50 runoff electorate, there were probably slightly fewer self-identifying Republicans than this study measures, very slightly more self-identifying Democrats, and a few more self-identifying Independents / Others.
A partisan self-identification of 36.65% Democratic, 48.66% Republican, and 14.69% other compares to a district-wide voter registration of 29.70% Democratic, 44.52% Republican, and 25.78% other. With a score of 100.0 being normal, and a higher score meaning higher turnout, this means that the relative partisan turnout in CA-50 was 123.4 for Democrats, 109.3 for Republicans, and 57.0 for everyone else. While perhaps not to the same extent that we argued in our memo, in the CA-50 special election runoff Democrats did indeed turn out in relative force, Republican turnout was relatively average, and Independent / Other turnout was relatively abysmal. Considering that Republican self-identification was slightly inflated due to their more contested primary, the statement in the previous sentence can be understood to carry even more weight than the numbers indicate on the surface.
It could be argued that low Independent / Other turnout was connected to this election being held on primary day, and even that the Democratic edge in turnout was connected to the high-profile Gubernatorial primary. However, combined, the two party committees and the various candidates in this race spent over $15M in this district, and more than two-thirds of that was spent by Republicans. This is far more than will be spent in any other House district this cycle. So, if people didn't turnout with that kind of spending thrown their way, one has to wonder if they ever will.
It also makes you wonder about the general Democratic strategy in 2006:
Democrats see independent voters, who continue to register disapproval of Bush and Congress, as the key to victory. Republicans, citing low turnout in many primaries this year, believe many of those independents will not vote in November and are focused on mobilizing their own base.
It is true that Democrats did turn out in very solid numbers in CA-50, so one is tempted to think that the Democratic base is fired up. That even seems to be the difference in the highly contrasting likely voter models currently floating around, as
likely voter screens that measure voter intention instead of voter history favor Democrats. If Democrats turn out at the same relative level to Republicans around the country as they turned out in CA-50, and as intention-based likely voter model screens are measuring, then we are pretty much a lock to take the House. Even in
the MyDD / Courage Campaign candidate memo, we urged Democratic candidates to not only focus on a message that would appeal to Independents, but also on a message that would convince Independents that this election was worth participating in (in other words, pick a polarizing, accountability based fight with Republicans on the big issue of the day: Iraq).
However, I can't help but wonder that if Republicans have began to focus on solidifying, firing up, and turning out their base, then the relative partisan turnout figures will be reversed as long as we focus on Independents. Can strong Democratic turnout relative to Republicans hold up when we don't work on turning out Democrats nearly as much as they work on turning out Republicans? Further, I also have to wonder if focusing on Independents is ever cost-effective, since the different likely voter screens we have seen over the past month indicate that turnout could mean a swing of up to nine points nationwide. You certainly can't find nine points among independents considering the low rate at which they historically turn out.
This past spring, I spent much of my writing arguing that Democrats need to focus on turning out their base in 2006, because this will be the base election. I argued that the key to this was keeping the activist base happy, since those are the people who would be the bulk of GOTV manpower, GOTV funding, and face-to-face messaging with their less politically engaged friends. I wrote about it enough that eventually a couple of fairly high up people in the Democratic leadership actually asked me to lunch at Yearly Kos to hear my ideas on how to do just that apart from the occasionally grand gesture, ala Murtha's withdrawal plan or Feingold's censure resolution. I actually ended up feeling kind of embarrassed at the meeting because I didn't' have any good ideas other than just having more grand gestures.
We are at the point where we can't be out of ideas on this subject anymore. We need the Democratic base, and the Democratic activist base, as fired up as possible for the 2006 elections. We need to do this no matter the flaws in the Democratic leadership, and we need to do it now. Our ground troops have to be ready--we can't be bored,
as I complained about last week. Any and all ideas you guys have on how we can make sure that the Democratic base remains fired up are welcome. Yes, keeping talking about Iraq, of course, but I want to hear other ideas as well, including GOTV ideas. Whatever you have, let it fly. The election is over in 44 days, 3.5 hours. Lay it all out on the table, and let's see what we have.
