I find the 37k turnout in a contested GOP primary in one of the half dozen most targetted districts in the country absolutely stunning. 37k! I've never seen a turnout quite that bad, at least in a contested district. To get your whole party beaten by a freakin' write-in Democrat is almost mind-boggling. Makes me think that 2004's 50/50 result might have been more about Diebold than the district's voters ...

The sky will fall and rise back up for us several times before the November election.

We just have to keep attacking and never let up.

But even if it does, I remain concerned.  This is almost certainly a base-turnout phenomena.  But the really lasting impact of a realigning election--which I ferverently hope this will be--is the mass movement of folks from one party to another. (With our current large number of independents, this would mostly be a virtual shift, with Reps turning independent, while independents turn Dem.)

And while there's certainly some of that going on, there's probably not nearly as much as there should be, if you compare the generic congressional ballot to other indicators of how bad people think things are going.  That's what I did in my diary today, "Dem's Congressional Lead Lags Indicators".

I hope to hell that things change by November, but as they stand right now, it still looks like a major opportunity is not being capitalized on.  After the past 6 years especially (not to downplay the Gingrich Revolution/government shutdown/Clinton Impeachment years), the idea of voting Republican should become as unthinkable as it was after 1932.

The results from IN-08 aren't as exciting as it would initially appear.  Here are the results from 2002: (Link)

Hartke & Graf (Democrats): 58,005
Hostettler (GOP): 29,673

Hostettler is known for his fall GOTV operation - Ellsworth is a strong candidate, but I don't think this election gives us reason for additional optimism.

The Indiana turnout was pathetic.  Indiana has a gate crashing primary.  Voters don't register a party affiliation.  Voters show up at the polls and request the ballot they desire.  If there is a hot contested local race, that can drive turnout.  One can guess the meaning of an election, but good analysis requires careful study of the votes.

So if you look at a district like IN 4 with incumbant Steve Buyer,

http://www.in.gov/serv/sos_primary06?pag e=district&countyID=79&partyID=- 1&officeID=5&districtID=4&di strictshortviewID=4&candidate=

Buyer gets 58% of all 60,121 votes cast (returns not final).  You can compare that to his 04 percentage to see gains or slippage.

You can also see the crossover effect.  In Tippecanone County, with one hotly contested prosecuter's race (the 16 y incumbant lost) and no contested local Democratic contests, a lot of voters crossed over.  The average Campbell vote of 28 % was exceeded by over 2100 votes.  Most of those voters are really Dems that picked up a GOP ballot in order to have a voice in the prosecutor race or other contested GOP primary races.  I did this ONCE myself but the right wing fundie won anyway so I swore NEVER to pick up a GOP ballot ever again.

The following factors are responsible for the abysmally low turnout:

1.  04 was a complete FUBAR with some people waiting 4 h in the rain to vote.  The experience was so unpleasant that fewer people returned this year.

2.  Lack of contested races.  No reason to go vote.

3.  The new voter idea law.  It sends the message: "We don't want you to vote."

4.  Voter disillusionment.  Independents are totally fed up with the politicians and have no motivation to vote in either party primary.  Republicans are demoralized and stayed home.

This is good news, but I still think that we must invest as much time and money into get-out-the-vote efforts as is feasible without compromising the rest of the campaign. We need to turn this momentum from something good into something extraordinary.

There was this guy, Chris Bowers, and he was discussing the turnout in the Indiana Primary election. He was a liberal and he was optimistic about the Democrats' chances in Norvember and just about everybody else was a liberal and it was him against the whole class.

Not sure about previous elections but in NC-11 Democrats turned out 39,110 in primary (Shuler 29,193) compared to 33,812 for Republicans (Taylor 27,171).

OK If you look at where the big differences are, start with Vigo County.  It has a contested judge race, the only contested race.   So the GOP is crashing the primary.  That accounts for about 10,000 votes.

http://www.in.gov/serv/sos_primary06?pag e=county&countyID=84&partyID=-1& amp;officeID=5&districtID=8&dist rictshortviewID=8&candidate=

Another 2000 votes is in Posey Co  where the state Senate Race was contested by 3 Dems with GOP uncontested.

Gibson Co, is the same deal as Posey.

Daviess Co Breaks GOP by 1800 votes and there are no contested elections.

People need a reason to vote.  Contested primaries attract voters.  Uncontested primaries?  Might as well stay home or crash the other party.

BTW-  These open primaries make it GOTV efforts in the Fall that much more difficult because it can be hard to identify Dem voters.

The Primary Election results sure are a good sign for Ohio Democrats. We have a great chance to boot out two very conservative and partisan Republicans: Bob Ney and Steve Chabot.

Zach Space is taking on Ney now, and John Cranley is taking on Chabot.

To hear about all the amazing connections between Chabot and Abramoff, and Chabot and ultra conservatism, check out

http://ohiosfirst.blogspot.com/