This week three actual state primaries were held, and the results were mainly upsetting to those who strongly anticipated a bunch of upsets and the wholesale defeat of incumbents. You can read my earlier report for the results, but the bottom line is that the needle between the two parties did not move much in the three states holding Senate primaries.
Republicans will still be favored to take Evan Bayh’s seat in Indiana, though in nominating Dan Coats they are setting up the ripe target of a man with a very public record during many years in Congress and then a decade of controversial lobbying activities and out-of-state residence. Incumbent Republican Richard Burr will still be favored for re-election in North Carolina, but the two Democrats facing a runoff to become the nominee against him are probably happy for the exposure. And the Lee Fisher/Rob Portman fight in Ohio is probably one that will go right down to the wire.
There’s been a fair amount of anxiety in Democratic circles about the partisan turnout disparaties in Tuesday’s primaries. Reid Wilson of Hotline On Call had the numbers:
Just 663K OH voters cast ballots in the competitive primary between LG Lee Fisher (D) and Sec/State Jennifer Brunner (D). That number is lower than the 872K voters who turned out in ’06, when neither Gov. Ted Strickland (D) nor Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) faced serious primary opponents.
Only 425K voters turned out to pick a nominee against Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). The 14.4% turnout was smaller than the 444K voters — or 18% of all registered Dem voters — who turned out in ’04, when Gov. Mike Easley (D) faced only a gadfly candidate in his bid to be renominated for a second term.
And in IN, just 204K Hoosiers voted for Dem House candidates, far fewer than the 357K who turned out in ’02 and the 304K who turned out in ’06.
By contrast, GOP turnout was up almost across the board. 373K people voted in Burr’s uncompetitive primary, nearly 9% higher than the 343K who voted in the equally non-competitive primary in ’04. Turnout in House races in IN rose 14.6% from ’06, fueled by the competitive Senate primary, which attracted 550K voters. And 728K voters cast ballots for a GOP Sec/State nominee in Ohio, the highest-ranking statewide election with a primary; in ’06, just 444K voters cast ballots in that race.
This is yet another sign that Democrats need to be concerned about voter mobilization in November. On the other hand, in Indiana at least, I’m not sure a lot of those conservatives who were excited about the highly competitive GOP Senate primary were very excited about the actual outcome, since 61 percent of them voted against Dan Coats. Runoff requirements are in many ways a pain in the butt for both voters and for candidates, but they do tend to produce reasonably popular nominees.
The next contest on the calendar is Utah’s State Republican Convention, which controls access to the actual party primaries. Three-term incumbent Republican senator Bob Bennett is in very deep trouble, and could be excluded from the primary altogether by running third at the convention, or, in an alternative scenario, a convention determined to snuff his career could give front-running challenger Mike Lee the nomination without a primary. Jonathan Martin and Manu Raju have a Politico piece today about the shock waves that Bennett’s impending demise is sending through the ranks of Republican senators. If you don’t count Charlie Crist being chased right out of the GOP, or the defeat of Kay Bailey Hutchison in Texas, this is the first major scalp to be claimed by right-wing insurgents this year, with others on the near horizon. Expect a lot of howling at the moon tomorrow.
On the public opinion front, two new polls in Washington State (one by Rasmussen, the other by the local Elway firm) showed Sen. Patty Murray in reasonably good shape, even against conservative heart-throb Dino Rossi, who hasn’t decided whether to run. A new R2K poll in Kentucky (whose primaries are on May 18) shows Rand Paul and Dan Mongiardo still leading their respective party primaries, though Mongiardo’s lead over Jack Conway remains in the single digits. And in another May 18 primary state, Pennsylvania, the growing sense that Joe Sestak is finally catching up with Arlen Specter was reinforced by a new Muhlenberg poll showing them dead even.
