Primary Turn-out Surged. But Far More For Democrats Than For Republicans

Trumpty Dumpty by Nancy Ohanian

On Wednesday Axios posted a fascinating chart about the blue vs red primary surge in swing districts this cycle. You can probably read it if you click on the image:

They compared 19 battleground House districts to see how much of a primary vote surge there was for each party in each district. And there was a surge for each party in each district-- but the surges were disproportionately stronger for the Democrats in every single one of the 19 districts, all of which have Republican congressmen now

Now let me make a few things clear that Axios didn't look at. First off, even in districts where there were non-competitive primaries-- take WA-08-- for example, there were much bigger Democratic voter surges than Republican. The incumbent, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, saw a modest 1.6x jump from the 2014 midterms, the second biggest of any of the 19 districts for a Republican. But that was dwarfed by the 2.8x jump for Democrats who came out in droves to vote for Lisa Brown. And that isn't an outlier... that was the story in every one of these districts.



Look at CA-45, the Orange County district where Trump rubber-stamp Mimi Walters is desperately clinging to life. There were no other Republicans in the primary. However there were 4 Democrats participating, from a right-of-center New Dem, Dave Min, to Katie Porter, who won. But all that activity drive up Democratic participation from 2014 3.3 times among Democrats but just 1.4 times among Republicans.

How about where was no incumbent and there was a real Republican contest? Let's look at the CA-49 race (southern Orange County and northern San Diego County). Darrell Issa had announced he was retiring and the primary was wild-- 9 Republicans and 4 Democrats. You'd think all those Republicans would drive up turnout, right? But no. Democratic turnout zoomed up 2.7 times while GOP turnout lagged at 1.5 times.

It was even worse for Republicans in WI-01, where Paul Ryan withdrew from the race. There were 6 Republicans in the hunt but just 2 Democrats. 61,087 Democrats participated and just 59,870 Republicans. Democrats were so charged up to vote for Randy Bryce-- 36,397 did-- that Democratic voter participation surged two and a half times, while barely ticking up among Republicans at all-- 0.9 times. Ryan's handpicked candidate, corporate lawyer Brian Steil, was endorsed by Trump but he only managed to get 30,883 votes.

There was no circumstance or combination of circumstances that created a greater-- or even equal-- surge among Republicans than there was for Democrats.

Axios says this matters because 'poor turnout has been the scourge of Democrats' efforts to win congressional elections in the last decade. But this data suggests that a surge of anti-Trump enthusiasm could boost their turnout in November-- and not just in already-blue areas, but in parts of the country that could deliver control of the House to the Democrats."

OK, they have that right, but you know who's all wet? The DCCC. Notice that what's driving this is "anti-Trump enthusiasm," not enthusiasm for the shit candidates the DCCC recruited or for the so-called message the Democrats are supposedly pushing. The ridiculously unpopular "big tent" party is incapable to coming top with a popular message-- say Medicare-For-All or Job Guarantee or free state colleges-- because the DCCC recruits so many conservative Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the party. The only thing the DCCC is good at is digging a grave for the Democratic Party and setting in motion another anti-blue wave for the 2022 midterms. When Pelosi listed her 3 inane priorities, the most memorable one was also the most horrible: PayGo. There is no blue wave-- just an anti-red wave.

So how many of these 19 seats will the Democrats take? Probably 17. Possibly 18. And 19 wouldn't be a shock.