Swing State Project

« CA-50: Election Results Open Thread | Main | CA-50: Republicans Fracturing? »

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

CA-50: Post Mortem

Posted by DavidNYC

We all know the results of last night's election. This of course means we have a run-off scheduled for June 6th. I'd love to do a full post-mortem right now, and I definitely have plenty of thoughts. Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of preparing for our Passover seder tonight so I just don't have the time. However, I am sure all the usual suspects (MyDD, Kos, Hotline, CQ, etc.) have a lot to say, so go check `em out.

And to everyone observing the holiday tonight, chag sameach.

Posted at 02:48 PM in 2006 Elections - House, California | Technorati

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/mt/mt-track-ssp.cgi/2280

Comments

There is one Gop spin I see popping up, its the comparison of Kerry vote to Dem vote in the CD-50 Special election and how Busby et al barely came close to Kerry's performance:

Now, what is that truism about low voter turnout? The republicans always do better with low turnout...yup, its a standard.

2004
307,000 votes cast (87% turnout)
Kerry 43.9%

2006 Sp Election
137,000 votes cast (39% turnout)
Dem candidates 45.24%

Yes, we hope for a greater % turnout during the June Runoff & Statewide Primary, count on it.

Posted by: Predictor at April 12, 2006 04:15 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

You bring up a good point about turnout, in that it's difficult to compare a huge Bush/Kerry turnout to a Busby/Dozen Others turnout that was far less than half as much.

I'll take a bit of issue with the "GOP always does better with lower turnout" in this case -- they were the ones who benefited most from the high 2004 turnout, and did better motivating their base. But that should be a lesson to us as well -- you need to motivate people to vote, and with the motivation of a Dem Gov. primary that seems to be heating up, the opportunity is totally there for Busby to pick up the few more percent she needs.

I do think it's going to be much more difficult against Bilbray than Roach, though. He's a much more reasonable conservative, and is going to be a much more attractive candidate to independents and moderate republicans than any of the others would have been.

Posted by: IndianaProgressive at April 12, 2006 04:23 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

As I mentioned in a previous thread, Bilbray can be pegged as Washington insider lobbyist. Why did Duke Cunningham leave? Hmmmmm.
Bilbray has a record, maybe Francine should check with Cong. Susan Davis D-53, who defeated Bilbray in 2002.

The insider politicians: Former Cong Bilbray, Ex Assemblyman Kaloogian & State Senator Morrow pulled 28% of the vote. 72% went to political novices/newcomers, that may be an important statistic here. Incumbents/career politicians beware?

Posted by: Predictor at April 12, 2006 04:38 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Before I go, here is a link to CQ Politics take on the race:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/2006/04/ca_50_early_returns_show_twoma.html

Posted by: Predictor at April 12, 2006 05:02 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Chag Kasher V'Same'ach, David.

Posted by: Ohanon at April 12, 2006 06:53 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Busby could win in June. With the Democratic primary for Governor, it would give Dems another reason to come out and vote. Bilbray isn't that popular, when you think about it. If 5-10 percent of the Republican vote doesn't show up again or switches their vote to Busby, she'll win.

Posted by: Craig at April 12, 2006 08:23 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

For a discussion between the parts of the voting populus that turned out about 66% and the parts that turned out 36% check out PoliticalDogfight.

Posted by: Stuart O'Neill at April 12, 2006 10:35 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Thanks for the link Stuart O'N.

Please refer to the link here for the Field Poll study on California Megatrends and their analysis of Absentee Voting Trends in Calif. (Table 15) in the document.
Absentee voting reached its peak in the 2005 Referendum Election. 40% voted absentee. Its increase has been constant since 1976, when Absentee Voting was 4%.
This is the way to go.
In some parts of urban Calif polling locations can be a person's garage with a 7' high ceiling loaded with junk. its not like the East Coast when it comes to polling location quality: schools, firehouses, libraries, etc.
Because of this, you may begin to see a variation in the party lean on Absentee vote.

http://field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/CaliforniaMegatrends.pdf

Posted by: Predictor at April 12, 2006 11:36 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Absentee Voting began 4 weeks before election day. That would mean this early voting started March 14th. De Lay resigned April 5. 22 days of Absentee Voting had occurred by then. 60,000 absentee votes received and counted by that 28 day period.
Other than the fact that Busby was still polling in the upper thirties (?) in that time period, could we be missing a good deal of the De Lay impact here and some other events occuring the week before the election (given the proportion of the Absentee Votes)?
Who else had "mo" in that time period Bilbray or Roach, equal?

Posted by: Predictor at April 13, 2006 01:00 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

l'shana ha-ba'a b'yerushalayim.

I LOVE Hebrew transliterations!

Posted by: JelloAbode at April 13, 2006 02:14 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Oy Vay, I just know some Yiddish, but then again I'm mushugina (sp). LOL.
Happy Holy days.

Posted by: Predictor at April 13, 2006 02:28 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

The Absentee Ballot push can extend, as pointed out above the Election day from 13 hours to 4 feaking weeks!

Think we been missing something? There are other nuances as well in this subject of Absentee Balloting about who to target. I just got an audio up at Political Dogfight for those that what to add some power to the punch.

Posted by: Stuart O'Neill at April 13, 2006 05:10 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment