How much better did Scott Brown do than McCain? Not much. But Coakely drew 830,000 fewer

[ProgressiveEconomist]

830,000 fewer Democratic votes than did Obama.

If the MA special senatorial election REALLY represented a huge swing in voter sentiment toward Republicans, one would think Scott Brown had drawn substantially more votes yesterday than McCain drew in 2008.

Clearly, that did NOT happen. Brown drew just 6 percent more votes than did McCain, while Coakley drew 45 percent fewer than did Obama. It was lower turnout for Coakley in Obama vote-producing areas that explains the special election result. In other words, a poorly-executed campaign by vacationer Martha Coakley, rather than a "national referendum" on HCR or Obama.

.........Massachusetts Votes
Brown... 1,168,107
McCain. 1,104,284

Coakley 1,058,682
Obama.. 1,891,083

From http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2010/senate/results.html and http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/election_results/ma_president/

[tekisui]

1. I agree with that. Yet, it can also be that the lefties didn't

feel motivated to campaign for Coakley. That could be attributed to both her sorriness as a candidate and the left's disappointment in Dems.

[leftynyc]

2. Over 100,00 votes

that either went to McCain (or another candidate) or didn't vote went to Brown. That's a lot of votes.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

3. ??? Please explain

[leftynyc]

6. I phrased that wrong

Brown got over 100,000 votes that McCain didn't get. They came from somewhere.

[leftynyc]

7. Actually 60K+

Still a lot of votes and they didn't all come from Independents.

[GreenArrow]

14. they could have come from Republicans

who voted for Obama.

[leftynyc]

19. And independents

I know I saw a few stories of Dems voting pub but I suspect those were very few and far between (I just can't imagine casting a vote for Pres Obama and then for this guy).

[ProgressiveEconomist]

18. Though most probably did, if the polling was correct

[ProSense]

4. Kerry got 1,959,843 in 2008. n/t

[Froward69]

5. Kick for the Silver lining

:kick:

Add to that Jon Stewart's take
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7522590

and yesterday was actually not as bad as it seemed.

Optimism is alive and well.

[leveymg]

8. Same thing happened in VA in the Gov race. 1.15 million fewer Dems showed up.

Same thing, all over again. Here's something I wrote back in November about that:


Numbers in VA Debacle Show that Dem Turnout Low Because Party Base Turned-Off

Posted by leveymg in General Discussion
Thu Nov 05th 2009, 01:12 PM

Don't believe the soothing words of the Blue Dog pollsters, big-wigs and other DC smoke screeners. The disastrous defeat of Democratic candidate Craig Deeds in the Virginia Governor's race was not a local thing. Not a flash in the pan, at all. The SCALE of the defeat was certainly not typical. One has to go back more than half a century to find a similar State House massacre in the Old Dominion.

The 60/40 defeat of Deeds is not typical of VA Governor's races. Nor, was the comparatively low Dem turnout. Put the two together, and you have a major event that some of the party leadership don't want you talking about. Here are the numbers that show what happened.

In 2008, Obama received 52.6 percent of the nearly 3.7 million votes cast in Virginia's presidential contest, about 2 million votes. He is now viewed favorably by 44 percent of Virginians, down about 8 percent. By comparison, Deeds polled only 815,000 votes, only 41 percent of the total cast on Tuesday, a mere 40 percent of what Obama received last year. That is a huge drop-off, even considering the lower turnout in the Governor's race compared to the '08 Presidential race.

Historically, VA Governor's races turn out somewhat fewer voters than Presidential contests, averaging about a 15 point difference. The turnout in the state for the '04 and '08 Presidential elections was 62 and 68 percent of the registered voters, while across the state in the 2005 gubernatorial election, turnout was approximately 45 percent. On Tuesday, voter total was about 3 million out of 5.4 million registered voters, 55 percent turnout, which is a relatively high for a Gubenatorial race. Historically low turnouts were in '97, when turnout was about 48 percent of registered voters, the lowest for a Virginia governor's race since 1965. Unfortunately, a disproportionate percentage voted Republican this year for state-wide offices, which is a big change from four years ago when Tim Kaine won with 52 percent, just about the same percentage polled by Mark Warner in 2001.

The last candidate for Virginia governor to win more than 60 percent of the vote was Democrat Albertis S. Harrison Jr., who in 1961 won 63.8 percent.

Lessons learned from VA - 1) turn on the base or the Dems will lose more elections; 2) this was not a typical VA election by recent standards. Lots of Republicans turned out, while Democratic-leaning voters didn't. The reason is obvious - Democratic candidates lose when they run toward the almighty center-right, and the Progressive base doesn't turn out the vote.

The Blue Dog strategy of steering toward the center-right is now a proven election-loser. As the GOP has shown, keeping the base mobilized wins elections - only a Progressive agenda, of the type that Obama promised, will mobilize the Democratic Party. He and a new set of Democratic leaders must deliver, or we are sunk.

If the Dem leadership continues on this course, we will lose again, and again, until we are once more the minority party in America. I am beginning to believe that is all that the DLC types know how to be or even want to be. They're Losers, yet again.
Read entry | Discuss (16 comments) | Recommend (+11 votes) | Remove from Journal | Add/Edit Intro

[ProgressiveEconomist]

10. I disagree. Do you have links to county-by-county results in '09 and '08 for VA?

The VA election autopsy I heard said that Deeds's mistake was actually LISTENING to the Tea-Partyers and running AWAY from Obama. Deeds concentrated on getting the vote in the southwestern part of the state rather than in the cities that had turned out a huge winning vote for Obama.

But at least he didn't go on vacation!

[leveymg]

12. I don't think we disagree. That autopsy is correct.

Deeds ran to the Right of Obama, particularly on HCR, and he promised to opt-out if HCR included a Public Option. Don't have county- by-county numbers handy, but try the WaPo site for that.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. The better Dem candidate lost in the primary due to spoiler Terry MacAuliffe

Deeds had already lost one head to head with McDonnell previously for Attorney General. Creigh Deeds then ran a largely incoherant campaign where he tried to be almost as Republican as a very popular Republican. He said he would opt out of HCR reform! That really did it for him.

Deeds is similar to Coakley in that he just personally ran an awful campaign and was an awful candidate. What is he up to tday? My local paper had a snippet that he had just introduced a bill in the Virginia statehouse to allow infants to have a gun license. I wish I was kidding but I am not.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. This argument is irrational

You might as well be comparing church attendance on Wednesday and Sunday.

Presidential elections are big turnout elections.

Special elections in January are small turn-out elections.

The republican candidate got presidential election turnout in a special election. That is vastly more republican voters than would be expected.

Meanwhile, the big drop-off in Dem voters for Coakley is about what you'd expect when comparing a presidential vote to a special election.

Republicans vastly exceeded normal turnout for this election so the OP argument is completely backward.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

11. I disagree strongly. Obama won MA in a blowout, so only a relatively small hard-core

of Republicans had turned out for McCain. Scott Brown evidently did not get very far beyond that small hard core.

The first link in the OP gives local turnout perentages for 351 Massachusetts jurisdictions. Statewide turnout was 54%. but only 43 percent in Boston, 42 percent in Worcester, 32 percent in Springfield, 35 percent in New Bedford, 41 percent in Brockton, and similarly low in other cites where Obama rang up huge margins.

There can be no doubt that there was differentially lower turnout in big Obama-vote producing areas. There just wasn't time to make up for the lack of campaigning in cities where polling places are sparse, voting equipment is inferior, and people are too busy working two or more jobs to pay much attention to politics without being hit over the head with it for months.

On the other hand, hard-core McCain areas where voting is easy and quick turned out in force for Brown when Faux News rang the Pavlovian bell for Brown.

[leveymg]

13. In VA, the difference in '08 Presidential and '09 Gov race turnout was only 7 percent, which

makes heads-to-head comparison fairly accurate and easy to correct for. Democrats didn't turn out in droves in November, but the GOP turnout was almost identical.

[ddeclue]

16. absolute numbers don't matter this is an apples to oranges comparison

percentages matter.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

17. See post #11 above for a link to all the turnout percentages you could ever want