Thread: Dreadful results in Middle America for the Obama Democrats

Dreadful results in Middle America for the Obama Democrats

By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
08/04/10 1:15 PM EDT

I’ve just been looking at the returns from the primary elections yesterday in Michigan and Missouri. Neither state has party registration, which means that voters can choose to vote in either the Republican or the Democratic primary.

In both states both parties had relatively congruent top-ticket races. Both had seriously contested governor races in Michigan and both had lopsided primaries with clear favorites for U.S. senator in Missouri. These circumstances make relative turnout a good gauge of the balance of enthusiasm in both states.

The big news is that in both states nearly twice as many voters chose to participate in the Republican primary as in the Democratic primary. The numbers are as follows:

State............Republican ........ Democratic
Michigan ..... 1,044,525 ............527,202
Missouri .......577,612 ...............315,787

Another way to look at it: Republicans won 66% of the two-party vote in Michigan and 65% of the two-party vote in Missouri. Quite a contrast from the 2008 presidential election, in which Barack Obama carried Michigan 57%-41% and lost Missouri by the extremely narrow margin of 0.2%.

We see a similar pattern in House elections in these states. I have put the Obama-McCain 2008 percentages for each district in the third column:

....................... GOP........ Democrats ...... Obama-McCain%
Michigan 1 ...... 70.977 ...... 27,986............... 50%-48%
Michigan 2 ......106,411 ..... 20,611.................48%-50%
Michigan 3 ......94,739 ...... 20.506................. 48%-49%
Michigan 4 ......76,517 ...... 20,951................. 50%-46%
Michigan 5 ......39,483 ...... 44.345................. 63%-35%
Michigan 6 ..... 73,549 ...... 18,018 ................ 54%-44%
Michigan 7 ..... 72,986 ...... 24,005 ................ 51%-47%
Michigan 8 ..... 77,712 ...... 26,341 ................ 53%-46%
Michigan 9 ..... 79,711....... 37,838 ................ 56%-43%
Michigan 10.....84,424 ...... 23,228 ................ 48%-50%
Michigan 11.....65,695 ...... 27,296 ................ 54%-45%
Michigan 12.....33.864 ...... 56,295 ................ 65%-33%
Michigan 13.... 10,157 ...... 47,709 ................ 85%-14%
Michigan 14.... 13,412....... 44.886 ................ 86%-13%
Michigan 15.... 36,347........40,646 ................ 66%-33%
Missouri 1 .......16,197.......40,250..................80%-19%
Missouri 2........84,486.......24,092..................44%-55%
Missouri 3....... 35,112.......46,100..................60%-39%
Missouri 4.......88,614........32,178..................38%-61%
Missouri 5...... 34,141........33,041..................63%-36%
Missouri 6.......65,896........30,231..................45%-54%
Missouri 7.......104,317......14,678 .................35%-63%
Missouri 8....... 72,992.......27,873 .................36%-62%
Missouri 9.......71,954..... no candidate ..........44%-55%

Michigan 1 is the district being vacated by Democrat Bart Stupak. Outsider Dan Benishek leads state legislator Jason Allen by 12 votes in the Republican primary. Michigan 2, Michigan 3 and Missouri 7 are districts being vacated by incumbent Republicans; the widespread assumption that the Republican nominee would be the next congressmen undoubtedly contributed to the high Republican turnout in those seats. Michigan 5 and Missouri 5 are held by 34-year House veterans Democrats Dale Kildee and Ike Skelton, respectively; Michigan 15 is held by Democrat John Dingell, first elected in December 1955, the longest serving member of the House in history.

The almost even turnout in Michigan 5 and Michiagn 15 is surprising, considering that both districts voted about 2-1 for Barack Obama in 2008. The heavy Republican turnout in Missouri 5 is less surprising: Skelton is Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and has a record of independence from the Obama administration; nevertheless he has emerged as a Republican target in this cycle.

Michigan 7 and Michigan 9 are districts which Democrats Mark Schauer and Gary Peters captured in the 2008 election. Michigan 13 and Missouri 1 are black-majority districts, and Michigan 13 had a seriously contested primary in which incumbent Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, mother of former Detroit Mayor and felon Kwame Kilpatrick, was defeated for reelection. Nevertheless, turnout was low. By way of comparison, when John Conyers was first nominated in 1964 in a seriously contested Democratic primary (he won by 108 votes) in the black majority 1st district, turnout was 60,000—although that district’s population then was about 460,000, considerably less than the approximately 603,000 in today’s 13th district.

Heavy Republican turnout helps account for the 71%-29% majority for Missouri’s Proposition C, which purports to ban any mandate to buy health insurance. But it doesn’t explain the whole thing. As Daniel Blatt points out in a GayPatriot.net blogpost, Proposition C carried all 115 counties in Missouri (St. Louis City is separate and apart from St. Louis County, which voted for C; Kansas City, whose results are reported separately, is part of Jackson County, which as a whole voted for it as well. To have the mandate rejected by 71% of voters in a state Obama missed carrying by only 0.2% is a pretty devastating result.

All in all, these are dreadful results for the Obama Democrats.

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