Primary Elections

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Yesterday was the Pennsylvania primary. There was a large stink last year about legislators voting themselves a pay raise, then giving it back (but not really), which resulted in a huge grassroots movement to get rid of the incumbents, so I was eager to vote this time. As a general rule, if I'm not knowledgeable about the candidates in a race I will vote against the incumbent or the candidate who has been endorsed by the party.

What a waste of enthusiasm! All of the challengers were on the other ticket. Only one race in my party was contested, so I voted for that lone candidate, left the rest of the ballot blank, and left the voting booth wanting to go have a shower.

The interesting part happened today, when I was checking the results. There were three statewide races, and the three UNOPPOSED candidates for those offices all got different totals of votes - the delta from top to bottom is 32,898 votes, or 5.8%. So almost 6% of those voters who cared enough to go to the primary can't get behind the party's only candidates for the jobs of US Senator, Governor, and Lt. Governor. This doesn't say good things, I'm afraid.

 

People are disillusioned and tired of the same old lines. I wish we had more choices.

 

don't put a lot of stock in primary elections, it's a very select portion of the population that votes in them. Most people don't think about voting unless it's November.

Most people also don't vote in a lot of local elections because they're statisfied with the incumbant, who generally 90%+ chance of reelection (unless he's a U.S. Senator who has roughly a 75% chance of reelection) and therefore don't see a reason to go out and vote (or so say political scientists). Most people aren't going to take action if they get the result they want by doing nothing.

 

That's my point exactly - even the people who care enough about politics to vote in the primary can't get solidly behind the candidates endorsed by the party. You would think there'd be soem kind of enthusiasm among that group, at the very lest, but the returns say otherwise to me.

 

It's actually the more polarized and active members of the party who will vote and are therefore increasingly likely to have differing opinions. The rank and file party members will rarely vote unless the incumbent does something incredibly stupid to turn the party against him.

Those who desperately want change and those who avidly want the status-quo within the party are the ones who will vote. Those desperately wanting change tend to lead to A LOT of write ins which leads to a very large canidate field who have very few votes.

The average Democract or Republican will not vote in a primary election, but there are still enough generally to reflect the general view on who should be endorsed, dispite more radicalized elements.

Also that there is no party requirements, honestly does lead to members of the other party trying to undermine the current encumbent.

Finally if the endorsee is a challenger, specifically in a district that typically supports the other canidate (as in other party canidate), it's quite likely there is no unified concensus as to who should run.

[ May 17, 2006, 16:51: Message edited by: Ilmater's Suffering ]

 

Rally,

I remember from my time living in PA that it wasn't all that uncommon in primary elections to see the incumbent run unopposed, so your story isn't that surprising. Typically, the only time you see multiple canidates on the ticket in the primary is if a member of the opposite party is the incumbent. In fact, I remember that my Congressman when I was living in PA (Kanjorski) was so popular that there were several times he ran unopposed in the general election.

In my view, primaries are rubber stamp formalities if the incumbent is a member of your party, and the only time it is remotely interesting is if the other party is in power, and you have multiple contenders. That's why the turnouts are so low. Heck, even during the actual mid-term election, turnout is low compared to when the president runs, and primaries are typically lower than the actual election.

 

Apparently I wasn't the only one to notice the dissatisfaction. There was an article in the paper this morning about how ~22K voters who cast ballots for Lynn Swann in the governor's primary didn't do the same for Rick Santorum, and how the pols are concerned that this could signal waning support for someone seen as being very closely tied to the Bush administration.

I'm more glad than ever that the power of TiVo shields us from exposure to the harmful effects of political ads. It ain't gonna be pretty between now and November.