Tuesday was Election Day in Pennsylvania, but there wasn’t a whole lot to get excited about on the ballot out here in the Philly burbs. The main thing getting decided was who the candidates would be for school board elections in November. Now, my precinct is in my son’s school building, so that seemed fitting. And I know how my precinct votes and has voted in years past. It’s a Republican precinct in an historically Republican county, but it preferred Obama to McCain and Clinton to Trump. Romney carried it 52%-48%.
I don’t think you care who won the school board primaries, but you might be interested in the turnout numbers. For the first time in memory, more registered Democrats came to the polls than registered Republicans, and it wasn’t close. In fact, 21% of registered Democrats cast a ballot compared to only 12% of registered Republicans. Those are pretty miserable numbers for both sides, obviously, but the 12% number is crazy bad.
I know it’s only one data point, but it gives me insight into how my local community is feeling about politics right now. Only the most politically motivated people turn out in local elections like this, and the die-hard Republicans in my neighborhood really did not feel like voting.
Now, in the last couple of school board elections of this type the local Democratic leadership had someone standing outside the polls asking Democrats to vote for a Republican candidate because they’d granted her dual-access to our ballot line since she isn’t all that bad and she was the best we could hope for. And, it’s true, she isn’t bad at all. But, this time, the Democratic candidate came close to doubling the vote of the best performing Republican.
So, if this new voting behavior were to stand, it would eventually change the entire battlefield for our local elections and the makeup of our school board.
I haven’t examined how similar school board elections and turnout numbers looked in the Trumpian parts of Pennsylvania, and that needs to be done to get a full appreciation of how the Trump presidency, with all its problems, is reshaping the politics of the Keystone State. So far, all I know is that my precinct just went nearly two-to-one for a Democratic school board member when in the recent past we couldn’t even field a competitive candidate from our own party.
The Republicans had 12% turnout, people. Twelve percent!
With all the body-blows we have been taking lately, I will embrace good news wholeheartedly — even goods news that is a very small data-point. 12% — I truly hope that number is a sign of things to come.
This has aged well.
Yes it has.
By the way, does anybody know what ever happened to AustinSax? I miss him.
Probably a good sign for Ossoff in Georgia. I’d guess the GA-6 republicans (suburban Atlanta) are more like the Philly suburban republicans than the more rural areas.
When democrats turn out, democrats win. There are simply more voters who lean democratic than republican. Our problem in 2016 was, simply put, turnout.
Here’s the thing. That’s not true in my precinct. There are a lot more registered Republicans than registered Democrats, so even if the Democrats turned out at a better clip, they wouldn’t normally win.
However, the Democrats almost doubled the Republican turnout. When that happens, yeah, then the Democrats win.
The problem in 2016 was NOT turnout. The 2016 election was a perfect storm of: strategic voter suppression against minorities, an FBI director that put his thumb on the scale, a media obsessed with the horse race and manufacturing scandal (while ignoring real scandals), rampant and unmitigated racism, a Republican candidate that was a serial liar (seriously, how do you run against someone whose campaign promise is “vote for me and all your dreams will come true”), compounded by russian hacking/interference, not to mention strange anomalies in election results.
I’m sure there are other factors that I’m missing as well that depressed Democratic votes, and yet, the Democratic candidate still received 3,000,000 more votes than the Republican candidate but lost by less than 100,000 votes.
This is the first I’ve heard about an election flipping because of the current political environment. There have been some massive shifts, but they’ve been in deep Red or Blue districts where they didn’t change the outcome. Ossoff and Quinn will be good tests.
Something to key on for the next 18 months: How many people self-identify as Republican? I remember at the end of C+ Augustus, that number collapsed right before the 2006-08 waves.
In related developments at the time, the number of people identifying as Libertarians, Independents, and shortly after, TeaParty, skyrocketed.
The constant drip of the donald’s BS is taking a toll. Looking back over the last 10 days almost every day another bit of info drips out. I wonder what will leak as the donald steps on Air Force One?
If I were him I’d cancel the trip. He’s not going to have much left to come back to at this rate.
Nah, he won’t cancel. He desperately needs to change the subject and get back to being the god-emperor — er, President, goddammit, and all you lackeys better not forget it! So bring on the pomp and circumstance!
What odds on random trumpeters having unfortunate lip malfunctions and blatting raspberries when they should be blowing fanfares?
His main problem is ‘no matter where he goes, there he is’ (to paraphrase Buckaroo Banzai).
It’s likely to be a train wreck of a trip.
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Sounds like even a bunch of diehards stayed at home.
School boards is how the gop farm system begins. Good to hear dems might wake up to that.
The dog caught the car.