From the (Newport Beach) Daily Pilot
(snip)
But something else played into his almost getting a quick trip to Washington: Democrats didn't show up to vote.
Go back a year to the last time Cox ran. The vote totals then were Cox with 65% of the vote, 189,004; Democrat John Graham with 32.2%, at 93,525; and Cohen with 2.9%, at 8,343.
You're reading that correctly. A year ago, Graham got more votes than were cast on Tuesday. But look even closer. In 2004, Graham got more than 32% of the vote. This year, all the Democrats combined got just 16.4%.
I'd figured there would be no way for Campbell to win more than 50% of the vote because about 30% would go to the Democrats. How possibly could Campbell get such an overwhelming majority of what was left? I suspected he'd end up at best in the high 30%.
The answer was, he didn't need to get an overwhelming majority. With no Democrats showing up, it was almost possible to win the election on Tuesday.
(snip)
http://www.dailypilot.com/columns/story/26362p-37861c.html