The big story in Super Tuesday 2012–turnout depressed, along with GOP

2012 primary turnout heading lower

Turnout for most GOP primaries and caucuses hits new lows

Santorum, Romney

There can be little doubt that turnout in the GOP primaries is reflecting some kind of political margin of diminishing returns. In almost every state holding a GOP primary or caucus on ‘Super Tuesday’, turnout was down from 2008. Regardless of whether the state is big or small, suspenseful or predictable; regardless of geographical region and almost regardless of demographics, turnout went mostly down. The partial exceptions were Ohio, Vermont and North Dakota, the latter two heavily organized by Ron Paul supporters.

Ron Paul

 

Short overview

Massachusetts gave Mitt Romney a huge margin—Romney won with over 70 percent of the vote–but showed little life otherwise. Ask the six voters who turned up at one precinct in Springfield. Anecdotal evidence abounds from around the state, corroborated by unofficial tallies showing total turnout at 355,454 votes cast. The official figure given for the GOP primary in 2008 is 1,108,854. That’s a two-thirds drop in turnout in a hotly contested GOP primary season.

Obviously, predictability is a factor. In a state viewed as Romney’s home, where Romney was governor, there was little perceived suspense. Furthermore, Romney-alternative Rick Santorum recently declared that John F. Kennedy’s speech on religious tolerance and the separation of church and state in America made him want to throw up. His words. Scant wonder Santorum failed to pick up even one delegate in Massachusetts.

Turnout was depressed for ample reason in Virginia, too, with only Romney and Ron Paul on the ballot. Romney won Virginia with 60 percent of the vote, but with Paul his only opponent, the outcome was not considered seriously in doubt. Unofficial tallies put the vote total at 265,520. Local reporting on the ground confirms the low turnout, predicted to be low in Virginia. Danville and the Danville area, Hampton Roads, the Valley, Lynchburg, etc., etc.—the story was the same across the state, generally attributed to the fact that most of the GOP candidates were not on the ballot. However, the remarkably poor turnout contrasts heavily with Virginia’s Democratic primary in 2008—which had been narrowed to a two-person contest, although by less doofy processes than in Virginia 2012. Democrats did not get de-energized in a two-person race in 2008; maybe the number of people on the ballot matters less than who the candidates are. The 2008 Democratic primary, furthermore, was hit by a massive ice storm affecting the entire mid-Atlantic. People drove through the storm, or took mass transit through the storm, that Feb. 12 to vote for the candidate of their choice—Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton–in the ‘Chesapeake primary’. Some of them drove or traveled for hours to do so after a full work day.

Or for simpler comparison, contrast the 265K number above to the Republican presidential primary in Virginia in 2008: Less enthusiastic than the Dems’, it still totaled 489,252. That’s a drop by almost half in 2012.

 

Predictability cannot be the whole story

For a less predictable state, take Ohio, where the outcome was in serious doubt until late into the night March 6, and where Romney finally won by twelve thousand votes. In arguably the most hotly contested of the day’s primaries, with millions in advertising, billed by media outlets as the one to watch, turnout was nonetheless low. Official results are not yet posted, but by all accounts turnout stayed less than 25 percent. The unofficial total is 1,181,074 votes cast. The total reported for the GOP presidential primary in 2008 is 1,095,917. A slightly higher turnout in numbers this time, but an increase of only 85,000 statewide, in the most ballyhooed primary in the nation. It would be interesting to know how many of the 85,000 were crossover Democrats.*

Ohio also had a GOP primary for the Senate, with Republicans hoping to take back the seat held by Sen. Sherrod Brown, who won his primary. One of the livelier spots in Ohio 2012 was Cuyahoga County, where Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich had been redistricted against each other. Turnout reached 25 percent there largely because of the Democratic race.

Tennessee

Or take a look at Tennessee, another of the less predictable states. The unofficial total, again for a state where the outcome was in some suspense, is 540,791 votes cast. In the GOP presidential primary in February 2008, the total was 553,815 votes cast. The 2008 primary had a high-interest field of nine persons, including winner Mike Huckabee. But then, as mentioned, this year’s contest in Tennessee was regarded as holding some interest too.

If a safe primary does not generate large turnout, and a suspenseful primary does not generate large turnout, what does that leave?

 

Gingrich

Quick run-down, primaries:

Georgia: total votes unofficially reported 872,888. The Secretary of State’s office puts the total somewhat higher, at 900,129. The Georgia State Board of Elections also has a commendably user-friendly web site, with historical comparisons accessible. In 2008, the GOP presidential primary had 963,541 votes cast. Be it noted that the drop in Georgia is at least less than the drop some other places. Newt Gingrich himself has pointed out that turnout this year tends to be higher in places where he wins than in places where he loses. Down.

Oklahoma: vote total reported unofficially as 283,308. The total for the GOP presidential primary in 2008 was 335,054. Down.

Vermont: vote total this year 54,949. Same vote (GOP presidential primary) in 2008 is reported unofficially as 39,843. There was even less enthusiasm for Rick Santorum’s candidacy in Vermont than in neighboring Massachusetts. For quick comparison to the general elections in Vermont over the years, go here. Up.

 

Quick run-down, caucuses:

Alaska caucuses: Total this year 12,926. Total in 2008 13,703. Down.

Idaho caucuses: Total this year 44,655. Total in 2008 125,056. Way down.

North Dakota caucuses: Total this year 11,349. Total in 2008 9,743. Up. An exception.

 

There is more than one way to look at this decline in turnout. Argument is different from statistics. While there is no question about the decline, there is some question about what it means, or how much it means. Lack of enthusiasm, yes. Lack of drive to vote, yes. Why? Open to question.

As previously written, the committed Obama-haters do not need a reason to vote. They hardly need a candidate.

Also as previously written, much of the Republican electorate gives every sign of wanting to know as little about its candidates as possible. They want somebody else? They like seeing someone new? They suddenly jump onto a new and intriguing bandwagon, and just as abruptly jump off it? They get turned off by candidate after candidate, after learning more about the candidate? They remain uncommitted to Mitt Romney because they know so much about him? Romney’s unfavorable rating goes up the longer he stays in the race? The common denominator underlying these trends is the same throughout: This is lack of knowledge, and a lack of knowledge enthusiastically embraced, lack of knowledge rewarding the candidate, lack of knowledge about the candidate perceived as a plus.

The GOP is struggling mightily: It has opened up, mixed up, broadened, varied, adjusted and otherwise democratized its primary process, to choose a candidate who will uphold anti-democratizing policies. This can hardly be done.

*Note: CNN reports that its exit polls show 5 percent of GOP voters were Democrats this time. If accurate, that would be 59,000 Dems, or equivalent to most of the increase in turnout from 2008. These numbers on party ID are not watertight, but CNN was the first network to report–accurately–that Romney was actually leading in the close Ohio race. CNN had the advantage of the on-site work done by Dana Bash, at the county level, to provide more solid numbers, faster, than other networks. The reporting was swiftly picked up by John King and Wolf Blitzer, and swiftly conveyed. Arithmetic trumps preconceived story lines, actual voting trumps preliminary opinion polls.

Dana Bash

Note:  This post is corroborated by the run-down posted by Daily Kos, just a few hours after the above. East Coast met by West, once West Coast gets up.

 

2012 and the shrinking Super Tuesday

Republican primaries in rapidly shriveling interest

Tuesday, March 6, 2012–‘Super Tuesday’ GOP primaries and caucuses are here, along with a lot of media coverage. Most of the remaining Republicans running for the White House are trying mightily to switch the conversation from birth control and vaginal probes to bombing Iran. As usual, the single honorable exception is Ron Paul. Paul’s comments on our nuclear age, on the Cold War of the 20th century, and on diplomacy today rank as the most sane in almost his entire party, at least among candidates for office.

 

Santorum, Romney, Gingrich

In more local focus, eleven states have delegates at stake on Tuesday. From a political perspective, they fall loosely into a few categories.

  • Georgia is the stand-out with 76 delegates, although not winner-take-all. Good thing for Mitt Romney, since Georgia is also the only state where the most current polls show Newt Gingrich out ahead of everybody else by double digits. Rasmussen, done last night, gives Gingrich 10 points over Romney. Rasmussen is a GOP-oriented poll, protective of the establishment front-runner; other recent polls put Gingrich farther ahead. It will be interesting to see whether Rasmussen is confirmed. Georgia, of course, is considered Gingrich’s home state, and Gingrich has spoken frankly about needing to win there. It is also the most fertile ground in the Union, aside from South Carolina, for winning by out-uglying everybody else.
  • Tennessee is another of the three states in which Gingrich has placed some stock, i.e. attempting to woo it like Georgia with a shades-of-Nixon southern strategy. Santorum leads in Tennessee, as the Nashville paper reports, but the race is tight. If Romney’s well-funded attack ads against Santorum have an impact, between their direct effect and the boomerang effect Gingrich could be extruded upward up into a statistical tie in the outcome.
  • Virginia should have been a natural for Gingrich to make a big play. But alas, what with one thing and another—fraud, presumptuousness and disorganization—Gingrich did not make it onto the ballot in the Old Dominion, where he was leading in opinion polls before the ballot debacle, and where he has lived for years in the DC suburbs of northern Virginia. The Commonwealth has 46 delegates, but not statewide winner-take-all. So Ron Paul’s people might hold Romney to less than the total.

Those are the three southern-strategy states.

Then there are the caucus states—Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota. They have a combined 87 delegates but also combine geographic remoteness and distance from the radar screen of the national political press. The main question is how many of the delegates Paul receives, after extensive organizing with emphasis on caucus states.

Massachusetts and Vermont, the two New England states, are both considered Romney’s. They have 41 and 17 delegates respectively, offer little toehold for other candidates to reach a percentage threshold that would allocate any share of the total to anyone but Romney, and have no swing-state appeal to draw media attention. Thus even if Romney wins all the delegates, the win is liable to be regarded as just another nail in the coffin for reasoned interest in the GOP primaries.

 

Romney

Oklahoma is something of a stand-out for Rick Santorum. Santorum leads by a hefty margin in the most updated polls, and furthermore, Gingrich comes in second. Romney is a distant third, in spite of winning the endorsement of Sen. Tom Coburn. Thus Oklahoma is sui generis, unless you lump it with Ohio.

Ohio, of course, has received the most media emphasis. The big news, horse-race-wise, is that Santorum led in the polls and may still lead, but Romney has been moving up. With 66 delegates at stake and Santorum planning to watch the election returns from there, the standard media line is mostly about Ohio being to Santorum what Georgia is to Gingrich.

more to come