This is the second of my diaries analyzing the 2014 election in CA-42. My purpose in writing this is to look at the “numbers” to analyze the underlying demographic factors in this race. In particular, I will be looking at voter registration, turnout, and the election results for 2012. My next diary will look at demographics regarding race and ethnicity.
Let me also say that while Tim Sheridan is a friend, and I believe he can beat Ken Calvert, this analysis is intended to be a realistic assessment. The numbers do not generally favor a Democrat, and this is not an attempt to gloss over the facts. But there is reason for some optimism.
More below the fold...
For demographic data, I am relying primarily on spreadsheets created by users here at DailyKos that collated data provided by the US Censes and the ACS. In particular, readers can look at them here:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
For voter registration and elections in Riverside County, I am pulling data from the CA SoS website:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/...
So let me begin with the basics:
Voter Registration (CA SoS Feb. 2013 report):
Democrat: 94,266 29.82%
Republican: 141,786 44.85%
Other/NPP: 80,058 25.32%
Total registered: 316,110 100.0%
Compare that to Voter Registration as of May 21, 2012:
Democrat: 85,543 29.85%
Republican: 129,464 45.18%
Other/NPP: 71,537 24.97%
Total: 286,544 100.0%
I’ve included the “pre” and “post” election registration numbers for CA-42 to show that overall voter registration grew by about 10%, but the relative proportions remained fairly stable. This is important because, as I’ll discuss below, there was little or no effort by Obama, Feinstein, or Williamson to campaign or register voters in CA-42 in 2012.
It is rather cliché to write, but if Tim (or any Democrat) is to have any chance of winning in CA-42, voter registration is absolutely crucial. What the data shows is that voter rolls remained fairly stable in the absence of a large voter registration drive in 2012. 2014 provides an excellent opportunity altar the balance of Democratic and Republican voters, because the Republican Party in California is severely weakened, and is unlikely to pour any resources into CA-42. There are several other Republican incumbents facing stiff challengers (Buck McKeon, Gary Miller, David Valadao, etc.). In other words, Republicans in CA have bigger fires to put out, so a concerted effort to register large numbers of Democrats in CA-42, especially among the growing Latino community, could have a significant impact.
Another important data set to look at is overall population of eligible voters, the percentage who have registered, and the percentage who actually voted. My google-fu skills are limited, so I have been unable to find this data specifically for CA-42 in 2012. However, the CA SoS does provide data for Riverside County as a whole.
Riverside County:
Turnout of registered voters in 2012: 70.98%
Turnout of eligible voters in 2012: 49.28%
By comparison, here is data for California as a whole:
Turnout of registered voters in 2012: 72.36%
Turnout of eligible voters in 2012: 55.47%
The point to note is that Riverside County, as a whole, had lower than average turnout for a California county. That’s not unexpected, as Riverside County has a Republican voter registration advantage (albeit smaller than CA-42 itself) in a state that is trending very blue, a Republican party that is on the verge of irrelevancy, and no competitive races at the top of the ticket in most of Riverside County.
I have a theory that the vote was particularly depressed in CA-42 in 2012 because of the lack of any competitive race for which to vote. The reasoning goes like this: CA was widely expected to go to Obama. Dianne Feinstein was heavily favored as well. And Calvert was heavily favored to win the House race. In the absence of any activity by Team Blue, there was little incentive for Democratic voters to turn out in CA-42.
If this is true, this would have influenced the overall Presidential election result to skew Republican. And that would mean that the R+10 (previously R+12) Cook PVI rating is artificially high.
To prove my theory, I really want to look at voter turnout for CA-42 in particular, but the CA SoS has not published that data yet (that I could find, anyway). Using the information I COULD find, however, is giving me very weird numbers. For example, if you simply compare the number of votes cast for President in CA-42 (232,528) with the total number of registered voters from the February 2013 data (316,110)(the closest, temporally, I could find to election day), it shows voter turnout at 73.5%. That number shoots up to 82% if I use the May, 2012 voter registration numbers, which is just not credible. But there is no reason to believe that turnout in CA-42 would exceed turnout for the County, much less the state, when there were no competitive races at the top of the ballot. Nor am I aware that there were any local or state races that would have jacked up the turnout in CA-42. I’ll keep working on this, but if anyone can provide an explanation (or better data), I’d love to know it.
It’s certainly possible that my theory is completely wrong, but without definite data for CA-42, there is no way to be sure.
As for actual election results, voters in CA-42 were not kind to Democrats in 2012:
Presidential Election:
Romney 131,438 56.5%
Obama 96,212 41.4%
Total 232,528
House of Represenatives:
Calvert 130,245 60.6%
Williamson 84,702 39.4%
Total 214,947
The first observation I made is that Williamson received about 11,500 fewer votes than Obama. That means almost 12% of the voters who pushed the button for Obama either voted for Calvert, or didn't vote in the House election at all. Compare that with Calvert, who received only 1,200 fewer votes than Romney - a difference of less than 1%.
It should go without saying that the Obama campaign did not expend significant resources in CA-42. Nor did the Feinstein Campaign. But the difference in vote totals between Obama and Williamson is pretty stark. Truth be told, Williamson barely campaigned either. But where Obama and Feinstein have high name rec, Williamson had no mass media advertising or grassroots efforts, and had almost no fundraising (Williamson did not file a report with the FEC). In other words, Williamson ended up being little more than "Some Dude" (to use David Nir's expression). For all intents and purposes, there was no Democratic presence in CA-42 at the Federal level in 2012.
In that light, Williamson’s total of 39% represents an approximate “floor” that any generic Democrat could have expected in CA-42. While it’s too much to state that a fully funded, top-tier Democratic challenger could have beaten Calvert in 2012, it’s still the case that a candidate running an aggressive campaign can expect a significantly better result in 2014.
Another point I want to make is that Obama's vote total in 2012 was actually higher than the total number of registered Democrats in CA-42. Assuming that Democrats turned out to vote at the same rate (or lower) as all other voters, that means Obama received a significant portion of votes from Republicans who found Romney unacceptable, or "No Party Preference" voters. In contrast, both Romney and Calvert received significantly fewer votes than the total number of registered Republicans.
I'm not exactly sure what this means, but I suspect that Calvert's total represents something of a "ceiling", given that he was running in a presidential year with an unknown challenger.
In my next few posts, I’ll discuss how the demographics in the District are changing (and how they aren’t), and why those changes are favorable to Democrats.