Contribute

Support Left in the West to continue our work:

Blog Ads

Syndication

Event Calendar

February 2010
(view month)

S	M	T	W	R	F	S
*	01	02	03	04	05	06
07	08	09	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	*	*	*	*	*	*

(add event)

Full Disclosure

Matt Singer works for Forward Montana. He also is a partner in DP Productions, a small, Montana-based T-Shirt company.

Mandate in the State Legislature?

by: Matt Singer

Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 15:24:51 PM MST

Chuck Johnson has a story this morning on the oddness of Democrats winning the land board unanimously while losing control of the legislature.

The explanation offered in the article -- that leg race outcomes don't correlate with upticket support or statewide candidates -- is a pretty incomplete argument. It is offered both by our Governor and by a poli sci professor from UM. Bottom line, they say that because of the small size of Montana's House districts¹, voters make their decisions differently.

Looking at the data, though, this is a stretch. Down-ballot voting closely tracks up-ballot voting in every county I've looked at so far. Dem performance typically runs a few points ahead of Obama's performance. I'm not looking at Baucus's or Schweitzer's numbers (or Rehberg's for that matter), because those races were just in their own categories this year. Now, this isn't because Steve Bullock convinced people to vote for their local Democrat. It is because most people vote a straight ticket or something very close to a straight ticket, breaking only very infrequently (and my early analysis suggests split ticket voting declined this year).

Also worth noting for a variety of reasons: Democrats won the popular vote statewide in House races. The count is 228,888 to 219,490, with a hair over 4,000 scattered to third party, independent, and write-in candidates.

Note that this means that Dems in the legislature outperformed Linda McCulloch's statewide numbers (but also pretty solidly underperformed the rest of the Dem Tier B candidates).

Now, this doesn't mean that Democrats win the Montana House. Legislative races are the World Series, not the Super Bowl. You don't just have to get the votes -- you also have to get them in the right places.

Perhaps ironically, the more local races get, the less information voters are using to make their decisions and the more likely they appear to be to revert to partisan inclinations. That appears to be an especially strong impulse this year.

¹ Note, though that Montana's house districts aren't the smallest in the nation. That prize belongs to NH, where its 400 House members each represent roughly 3,000 people apiece.

Matt Singer :: Mandate in the State Legislature?

Tags: Montana, Election, 2008, Montana House, Elections, (All Tags)

Print Friendly View

Send As Email

Mandate in the State Legislature? | 5 comments

leg losses (0.00 / 0)

I agree with Matt: I don't necessarily buy the explanation in the Johnson story. Candidates did work hard, and coattails should be factor given how many new likely Dems were registered statewide.
I am also dumbfounded by the losses in leg races Dems were supposed to win. I have only looked at a few couties so far, but i did notice a couple oddities in Sanders county (where most of the votes in SD7 reside):
1) I-155 won overwhelmingly in Sanders, yet 1,000 (about 30%) of all i-155 supporters in Sanders apparently also voted for Hinkle-- a guy who publicly opposed federal funding for state programs (like CHIP). Maybe my expectations for the voters issue-knowledge is too high...
2) Gail Gutsche, a liberal, Msla Dem got MORE votes in Sanders than Jim Elliott--a guy who lives right there in Trout Cr and has been representing this county in House and Senate for something like 16 years. This seems really odd (although Gail worked hard in Sanders). Maybe Elliott was viewed as a long-term incumbent (even though he was technically a challenger in this race) and was victimized by anti-incumbency/pro-term limit sentiment. Or, maybe we need a elections audit in Sanders Co....Same goes for Paul Clark, who worked his butt off and came up short in his own county where he has traditionally done well.

It's just hard for me top believe how much we got our asses kicked on local leg races, while the statewides did so well...

by: Derek @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 10:44:11 AM CST

by: you @ soon

To post this comment click here:

Otherwise click cancel.

The word going out by some (0.00 / 0)

is that for races like Paul Clark and Jim Elliot's, that Obama's candidacy galvanized the republican vote by generating large turnout against him in some races. Those voters then voted the ticket and hence we have the results we see. I'm not sure this is the case in Sanders County, though. Nor have I looked at the numbers in other races across the state.

Here's some numbers from the unofficial results for Sanders County, ranked according to total number of republican votes the candidate got:

Race Rep votes Dem votes candidates U.S. House 3932 1524 Rehberg vs. Driscoll President 3556 1964 McCain vs. Obama AG 3280 2243 Fox vs. Bullock SD-7 3184 2519 Hinkle vs. Clark PSC-4 3157 2126 Mood vs. Gutsche HD-13 3143 2097 Ingraham vs. Elliot SoS 3083 2268 Johnson vs. McCulloch Auditor 3032 2353 Grimes vs. Lindeen OPI 2867 2200 Herman vs. Juneau Senate 2342 3357 Kelleher vs. Baucus Governor 2196 3417 Jones vs. Schweitzer

If you look at the SD-7 and HD-13 races, basically Clark and Elliot traded the seats they were running for with each other's seats from 2004. In 2004 Elliot ran for SD-7, and Clark ran for HD-13, and vice versa in 2008.

Here's the results for the seats from 2004:

Race Rep votes Dem votes candidates President 3461 1502 Bush vs. Kerry SD-7 1862 3226 Carl vs. Elliot HD-13 2112 2288 Simonson vs. Clark

So there were 493 more votes cast for president in Sanders County in 2008 than in 2004. And Obama's vote spread was 367 votes closer than Kerry's, so he overall did better in Sanders County than Kerry did, even given the higher turnout. I don't see any real correlation between the numbers of increased votes for McCain over Bush being reflected in the numbers for the other races.

Ingraham was the incumbent in HD-13, having won the seat in 2006 after Clark vacated it due to term limits. Ingraham received 2462 votes in 2006, almost 700 less than he did this year, so it might be said that the voters were happy with him as an incumbent, and not with Elliott, whom they viewed as a termed out senator looking for another seat in the house.

What is noteworthy is that both Elliott and Clark had fewer votes than in 2004 (HD-13, though doesn't cover the whole county so it has fewer total votes, anyways). But the fact that they swapped chambers with each other for this cycle may have had a lot to do with it. Montanans, for better or worse, decided they wanted term limits. And maybe we see some blow back from the voters for candidates just switching chairs they are running for in order to get around term limits. This would be an important detail for future termed out candidates to look at, depending on their districts.

Thoughts?

by: JC @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 15:36:06 PM CST

by: you @ soon

To post this comment click here:

Otherwise click cancel.

No mandate, and no coat-tails either Matt (0.00 / 0)

The only race that surprised me was that Brad Johnson lost. However, he wasn't out campaigning as hard as he did against Bill Kennedy either. The GOP took back the Montana legislature because they had the right candidates in the right districts. The only person I talked to before the election who predicted this mess correctly was Brad Molnar. I had a sandwich with him at Arby's one day, and he told me the GOP would take back the Senate, and tie in the house, and that only he and Denny Rehberg would be re-elected statewide. I thought he was wrong about Brad Johnson losing, but he wasn't. Denny won, well, because he's Denny, and Brad won because he was running against Ron Tussing, and because Brad is a tireless campaigner. I'd love to run him against John Bohlinger for Governor in 4 years. The current political scene should supply us with lots of good conversations for the next few years, shouldn't it?

by: Eric Coobs @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 17:51:56 PM CST

by: you @ soon

To post this comment click here:

Otherwise click cancel.

Bohlinger will not be Schweitzers heir (0.00 / 0)

You have a lot to learn about politics Eric. In two years John Bohlinger will resign as Lt. Governor, and whoever they pick to replace him will be their next gubernatorial candidate. Many Democrats have never accepted John Bohlinger as one of their own, just like many Republicans were glad to give him the boot.

by: Pete Hill @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 21:42:20 PM CST

by: you @ soon

To post this comment click here:

Otherwise click cancel.

Why should it be a Lt. Gov? (0.00 / 0)

Why can't we run an Attorney General, or Secretary of State?

by: Mathello @ Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 23:03:36 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Mandate in the State Legislature? | 5 comments

Make a New Account

Forget your username or password?

Poll

Would kind of likely reform would you support?

Baucus plan, with or without public option
Baucus plan, but only with public option
I don't support the Baucus plan, period

Results