But as Steve shows you, it was a skin-of-the-teeth win.
...While on the surface, it is a big win, the fact that normal primary elections happened at the same time means one can quantify just how unpopular even a Dem who ran away from the Dem agenda, as Critz did, is. In the 3-person Democrat primary for the full-term fall election, just under 81,000 Democrats participated, with just under 46,000 Republicans participating in their 2-person primary (also won by Burns), which made for a participation margin of D+27.6 points. In the special election, 10,000 of those who voted in the Democrat primary did not vote for Critz, 15,000 who did not vote in the Republican primary voted for Burns, with 3,000 voting for the Libertarian candidate. That still leaves a 20-point swing away from the Dem column and to the GOP column.
There were 22,000 votes in the Democrat primary that did not go to Critz. Somehow, I doubt 10,000 of them voted in the Democrat primary, then turned around to vote for Burns in the special election, so I’ll take the scenario that those 10,000 simply didn’t vote in the special election. Even with that assignment, Critz would have only won by 14 points, a 13.6-point swing to the Republicans.
Mind you this is a 2-to-1 (D) registration area of Pennsylvania.More at the link.
If one needs numbercrunching, one ought to call Steve.........!
I wouldn't say it was a skin-of-the-teeth win. Outside of Critz posing as a "moderate", it was an ideal situation for the GOP, and they still didn't get within 7.
ReplyDeletePA-12 is as safe a Dem district as Gwen Moore's or Tammy Baldwin's. Fortunately, there isn't too many of those.
Umnnhhhh:
ReplyDeleteAfter all, this is a heavily Democratic district that elected the same Democrat the last eighteen elections. Their registration edge is in double digits, so an eight-point loss for Republicans isn’t a bad showing.--AOSHQ quoting somebody.
No, 8% is not 'skin of the teeth,' unless you're supposed to win by 15-20%.
Except he wasn't supposed to win by 15-20% ... it was a toss-up.
ReplyDeletePA-12 is as safe a Dem district as Gwen Moore's or Tammy Baldwin's.
ReplyDeleteFalse. PA-12 went for McCain in 08, after having gone Kerry in 04--the only CD in the country to do so.