Let the speculating begin! James Connor:
But the vote totals for Melinda Gopher and Sam Rankin, and the lower than expected total for Tyler Gernant, are surprises. Gopher and Rankin were running soapbox candidacies on a shoestring. I expected each to receive around five percent of the vote. And I expected a much closer race between McDonald and Gernant.
What happened? Two things, I think.
First, I believe that early voting hurt Gernant. His campaign gathered steam during the last half of May, but by then a lot of Democrats, the ones who reject the idea that they have a responsibility to keep their minds open until the campaign ends, had voted - and a lot of them voted for McDonald. Early voting almost always helps the initially better known candidate.
Second, most Democrats understood that none of the Democratic candidates had an ice cube's chance in a blast furnace of beating Rehberg. That provided an opportunity to cast a protest vote against the Democratic establishment, which was represented by McDonald and Gernant.
Your guess is as good as mine, folks. In any election that gives Sam Rankin 16 percent of the vote in a four-way race, you've got to scratch your head. It's not random -- that's only a few points lower than you'd expect if all Democratic primary voters cast their ballots randomly. It's not cross-over voters: Republicans actually had a race in the US House, and a lot more disputed and contentious legislative primaries. (Not to mention county commissioner races.) A protest vote, as Connor suggests? That assumes the voters are very well informed -- they'd have to know who the "establishment" candidate is, and who the outsiders were -- and thinking strategically.
Let's be frank, people. This is the second year in a row that Montanans in large numbers picked irrational candidates in the primary. In 2008, it was Driscoll and Kelleher. And that time around, we blamed new voters turned out for the Clinton-Obama brouhaha who were uninformed about the down-ticket races and lost in the blizzard of candidates on the primary ballot. But this year, turnout was low, and the US House race was the showcase event. Was it really a conscious decision?
(Note that Republican voters, on the other hand, supported Dennis Rehberg nearly unanimously, despite warnings that we were facing an "anti-incumbent" tidal wave.)
Why did Sam Rankin nearly beat out Tyler Gernant? Why did the Democrats of South Carolina nominate an unemployed veteran living in his mother's house to run for Senate?
Who the h*ll knows?
I'm waiting for Rasmus to explain. |
