David Jarman has an excellent diary today on the results of the Republican primary this past Tuesday, in which Congressman Eric Canot lost his primary challenge to Dave Bratt.
However, I totally disagree with David's assessment, quoting turnout expert Michael McDonald, that Democratic voters did not influence this race because Democratic voter turnout did not increase in 10 Democratic precincts, over Cantor's last primary challenge in 2012:
And turnout didn't shoot up in the more Democratic-friendly parts of the district. Compared with his easy primary win in 2012, Cantor had his biggest drop-offs in support in the district’s darkest-red counties. For example, a scatterplot by turnout expert Michael McDonald shows how turnout was the highest in the reddest precincts, where there simply aren't many Democrats to begin with.
Clearly, McDonald is looking in the wrong precincts to determine what role Democratic voters played in Cantor's loss. See my comment below from my diary published yesterday morning:
McDonald is clearing looking in the wrong precincts for Democratic voters. Clearly in the 10 precincts he sites in Henrico County that are Democratic precincts, there is no sign of Dems turning out to vote against Cantor. But McDonald is looking in the wrong precincts - a lot of these precincts are composed of voters who are less educated, make lower wages and are less frequent voters than their counterparts in the western part of Henrico County. For instance, one of these Democratic precincts has a medium income of only $40,000.00 while one precinct in the western part of the county has a medium income of $144,500.00.
If you want to see where Dems voted in this primary, McDonald should be looking in the precincts in western Henrico County and northern Chesterfield County, as well as some precincts in Hanover County and Goochland County, and in the City of Richmond. Democrats in these precincts have higher income, higher levels of education, etc., and are more active voters, and were the most likely to be the types of Democratic voters to meddle in a Republican primary. The problem is that McDonald probably does not have the tools to figure this out.
Clearly, there were progressives out there doing what they could to turn out D's against Cantor.
http://www.nvdaily.com/...
I agree that Bratt's 7,200 vote margin was not composed of strictly Democratic votes. However, to say that Democratic voters did not impact the race when it is clear that the analysis that was done that states Dems did not influence this primary was based on looking in the wrong precincts, is clearly not correct.
http://www.nvdaily.com/...
Here is the link to my complete diary posted yesterday morning:
http://www.dailykos.com/...