By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings
Note to BfA readers: This is a “survey” post, not an “analysis” piece. Also, other BfA writers will cover southern AZ races in greater depth than I did here.
Maricopa County results, courtesy the website of the Maricopa County Recorder, as of 10:20 p.m.(some of these races are close enough that they could flip :
CD9 – D incumbent Kyrsten Sinema ahead of R perennial candidate Wendy Rogers by >11%, 97% reporting. Sinema’s going to win. Not a surprise. Early on, she was seen as vulnerable, but nobody from the Republican “A” team stepped up.
Legislative races:
No big surprises, but one disappointment: In LD23, Republican John Kavanagh is cruising to winning the Senate seat there over Democrat Paula Pennypacker by more than 25 percentage points.
On the plus side: In LD28, Democratic State Representative Eric Meyer looks to be withstanding a challenge from Republican Shawnna Bolick, wife of Goldwater Institute bigwig Clint Bolick, and the beneficiary of lots of IE money.
County races:
Biggest surprise – In a non-partisan race for a seat on the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) governing board, Republican former legislator Jean McGrath trounced incumbent Randolph Lumm by nearly 40 percentage points. The highlight of her legislative career: proposing a bill that would have barred opposite sex visitors in the dorms of the state’s universities. Wonder if anyone has informed her that Maricopa County’s community colleges don’t have dorms?
Ballot questions:
Proposition 480, Maricopa Integrated Health System bond question (funding for rebuilding the county hospital system): Passing by more than 160K votes.
Proposition 487, City of Phoenix question, gutting public employee pensions: Falling by nearly 26K votes.
State results (and a smattering of races that aren’t statewide, but are outside of Maricopa County), mostly courtesy the website of the Arizona Secretary of State, as of 11:45 p.m. :
CD1: Democratic incumbent Ann Kirkpatrick ahead of Republican challenger Andy Tobin by just over 5K votes, 211 of 327 precincts reporting. Kirkpatrick will win.
CD2; Democratic incumbent Ron Barber ahead of Republican challenger Martha McSally by 247 votes, 136 of 194 precincts reporting. Too close to call.
AZGov: Republican Doug Ducey ahead of Democrat Fred Duval by ~141K votes, 1319 of 1566 precincts reporting. Ducey will win. 🙁
AZSOS: Republican Michelle Reagan ahead of Democrat Terry Goddard by ~53K votes, 1319 of 1566 precincts reporting. Likely Reagan win.
AZAG: Republican Mark Brnovich ahead of Democrat Felecia Rotellini by ~75K votes, 1319 of 1566 precincts reporting. Likely Brnovich win.
AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction: Republican Diane Douglas ahead of Democrat David Garcia by ~26K votes, 1319 of 1566 precincts reporting. Considering that Douglas basically hid from the public during the campaign, this one will be an embarrassment if it holds up.
LD2 State Representative: Upset in the making as Republican John Ackerley is ahead of Democratic incumbent Demion Clinco by ~2K votes for the second spot there, 55 of 57 precincts reporting (two are elected; Democrat Rosanna Gabaldon is easily holding on to the other seat).
LD4 State Representative: Another upset in the making with Republican Richard Hopkins ahead of Democrat Charlene Fernandez by ~600 votes for the second spot there, 56 of 59 precincts reporting (two are elected; Democrat Lisa Otondo is holding on to the other seat).
LD6 State Senate: In a race that could determine the presidency of the state senate, Independent Tom O’Halleran is ahead of Republican Sylvia Allen by ~450 votes. Word is that if O’Halleran wins, current Senate president Andy Biggs will be replaced by former Senate president Steve Pierce, and that if Allen wins, the status quo will be maintained.
LD9 State Representative: Too close to call. 250 separate the three candidate for two spots. Currently incumbent faux moderate Republican Ethan Orr trails Democrats Randy Friese and Victoria Steele, 53 of 57 precincts reporting.
Proposition 122, the neo-secessionist “nullification” measure: Ahead by ~22K votes, 1319 of 1566 precincts reporting.
Proposition 303, called the “Right to Try Act” (would allow drug companies to sell untested drugs to desperate terminally ill patients): Ahead by ~600K votes, 1319 of 1566 precincts reporting.
Proposition 304, legislative pay raise: Falling by a margin of more than 2 to 1.
Pima County Proposition 415, bonds to fund improvements to Pima County’s Animal Care facility: Passing easily.
Nationally, Tuesday sucked for Democrats (mostly). There will be time for a full recap on Wednesday, but here’s a bit of a preview:
Dear Massachusetts Democrats, never, EVER, again nominate Martha Coakley for anything.
Dark money had an affect, but Dems letting the GOP control the message and not standing up for Dem accomplishment turned off potential Dem voters lack of interest. Why would they be interested in voting for Dems, when the Dems nationwide were running away from the accomplishments of the past 6 years, and ignoring the President/Party that succeeded in stopping total economic collapse, reduced the deficit to 1/3 of what 2008 started with (largely due to the President letting Bush Tax Cuts expire), and instituted a healthcare system for the first time, that is covering over 10 million new people…and could cover a lot more if more states took expanded Medicaid. Pretty much “all” the Dems nationwide. who tried to ignore our successes and act as if the President didn’t exist, and act like we hadn’t done “anything”…in spite of Forbes Mag and many other Economists saying he was the best Econ. Pres. we’ve ever had, in spite of proven strengthening Medicare, keeping the rise in healthcare costs down, getting unemployment rates down, etc. No, everything wasn’t fixed or perfect and spoiled children didn’t get all their wishes to come true….so they took their ball and went home and took a lot of p0tential voters with them. Dems allowed the Republicans to carry the ball AND the message and never stood up for what the President & Dems did get done….in spite of GOP obstruction and Dem whining and Judas-like denying. If we don’t believe in our own successes, and support our progressive policies, why should we expect anyone else to do so.
You are w-a-a-a-y over thinking it. What happened is much simpler than that. About half of it was the usual mid-term election results and the other half was the clever way the GOP played on the disatisfaction with President Obama and, by extension, the Democrat Party. Of course it didn’t help that so many Democrats put so much faith in the “Dark Money” story to outrage voters and bring out the anti-GOP vote. The truth is that no one cared about that. It had no relevance to most people.
I mentioned it many times here when I commented about preaching to the choir. This Blog was like an echo chamber where you kept telling each other how important the dark money was, when I couldn’t see any reason why anyone would care. Most people NEVER know from where candidates money comes. And they still don’t…
Current average Obama approval ratings: 42% Approve, 53.2% Disapprove. This is why the Dems are running from Obama. It’s a pure numbers game.
If Obama has much higher approval ratings in two years, people will be riding Obama’s coattails.
That is far too rational an analysis to fly here at this time. They have suffered a serious loss and are now trying to collect themselves and answer “Why?”. Most seem to be falling back on the old Democrat mantras of the GOP hates women, the GOP is racist, the GOP wants to punish the poor, etc. They ignore the fact that several of the newly elected GOP members of the House and Senate are minorities and women. The correlation between Obama’s poor rating’s and most Democrats trying to distance themselves from him won’t register.
What happened is that largely we were offered the choice of Republican or….republican-lite.
When Dems run away from their party they lose.
Grow a gorram spine, people. You may still go down to defeat, but at least you’ll be on your feet swinging, not on your bellies grovelling to people who will never vote for you anyway.
They’ll never pull away a GOP voter, and independents will look at them and say ‘ well the other one actually stands up for their party. At least they have a stand.’
The Dem base, well, they got treated like the used rags they always seem to be. It would be SO nice to actually be able to vote for someone who represents me, instead of ‘someone who won’t screw me over as badly as the other one’.
Seems like the GOP did a lot of primary campaigning to defeat the extremist Tea Party types and then had a great showing in the general election with a number of candidates perceived as more moderate. For the Democrats to stand a chance, they’ll likely have to go even farther right towards the center. You might stay home, but you’re not going to vote GOP. (Though you could argue that staying home is like voting for the GOP, given the general GOP edge in low turnout elections.) Likewise if the Republicans make a centrist move, the Tea Party voters might stay home but they won’t vote for the Democrats.
I think yesterday was the revenge of the rich and the religious. The rich are still mad that the Bush tax cuts were reinstalled in 2010, and that the estate tax is still in place. It went away for one year, but now stands at 40%. Stay tuned on taxes, so called “tax reform” is in the air. As for the religious, I think they are upset that marriage equality is sweeping the country. Not much they can do about it, but they can and do vote.
Democratic turnout was weak among young voters and Hispanics. And while young voters that voted stayed Democratic, Hispanic voted more Republican in 2014 than 2012.
I don’t think it was that complicated. At the local level, I think it was low voter turnout typical for a midterm election combined with more GOP Members and independents voting red. At the national level, voters seemed most angry at the gridlock in Washington and wanted to try something new. I don’t think it’s anybody’s “revenge”. I just don’t see any single issue voter group garnering that much support for it’s position.
So what happened people? It was the dark money, wasn’t it?