Montana and the Western Democratic Trend
The Billings Gazette reads the primary election results and asks: Does turnout reveal a trend?
As the pundits and pols sifted through the tea leaves after Tuesday's primary election, one number stood out, even after the winners were determined.The unofficial results showed 10,773 more Montanans voted for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidates than cast ballots for the Republicans running in that race. Of the 204,863 people who voted in the Senate primary races, the five Democratic candidates collected a total of 107,818 votes, while the four Republicans garnered a total of 97,045 votes. So 52.6 percent of voters Tuesday voted in the Democratic Senate primary, while 47.4 percent went Republican.
The article then goes on to show how Montana has trended Republican in years when the number of GOP primary voters outnumbered the Democratic primary voters, and trended Democratic in the general election when, as now, more Democrats were voting in the primary.
While, of course, Republican strategists dispute this analysis, Jim Farrell, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party, observes:
"We're seeing a realignment of the voters of Montana to the Democratic Party…We're seeing a sharp shift in party alignment toward Democrats right now based on some issues, new leaders and new bases of power.""I think we're witnessing an emerging Democratic majority in Montana that began in 2004 at the state level…I think Tuesday confirms that, and we will expand it at the federal level."
Leo Brown | June 11, 2006 | Comment on This Post (2 so far) |
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Comments
Goodnews!
Posted by: Raymond Suelzer | Jun 11, 2006 8:25:11 AM
Hello,
I dont know if there has been enough time to actually tell if there is a pattern here or not. I am still looking through the data myself to see any patterns. But I can say this much about at least one race which is interesting to me. Its the CA-11 race.
There were 38,733 votes for the Democrat candidates and 30,092 votes for Republican Pombo. There was also 15,507 votes for Pombos Republican challenger Pete McClosky, who was seen as an outsider who was trying to steal the election. it was also seen by some as a democratic attempt to take his seat, but thats crazy.
I beleive that many of those 15,507 votes for republican McClosky are in play for the democratic challenger, because they, I think, were votes against pombo rather than traditional "republican" votes. I think that if the Democratic Challenger Jerry McNerney, can convert half McClosky's votes, then I think there is a pretty good chance of Pombo losing.
The reason we dont really know what the affiliation of those who voted for McClosky are, is that California has an open primary. Many of those voters could have been democrats who wanted to change the outcome of the republican primary. This happens all the time now.
I believe that Pombo is a threat to all we hold dear here in the West. He has tried to sell off our National Parks and BLM land, and will probably continue to do so if he is re-elected. He has tried to destroy the Endangered Species Act and tried to destroy American Indian Tribes, of which I am a member of one.
Even if we dont win back Congress, I would be happy to have Pombo gone.
Daniel Cardenas
Posted by: Daniel C. Cardenas Jr. | Jun 11, 2006 12:47:15 PM
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(and yes, we know that sometimes they're very, very wrong. Other times, they're right on.)
