September 17: Midterm Implications of Big Recall Win Are Mixed
Pouring over the details of the gubernatorial recall election in California, some significant patterns emerged, as I noted at New York:
The overwhelming defeat of the effort to recall California governor Gavin Newsom was a big victory for a Democratic Party that has had its troubles lately. With the margin of victory for the “no on recall” campaign roughly doubling the already-robust advantage shown in pre-election polls, the earlier scare that the recall threw into the ranks of the Golden State’s dominant party dissipated entirely. With about three-fourths of the expected vote now counted, “no” leads “yes” by a 63.8 to 36.2 margin (which could get even larger if the usual pattern of last-cast mail ballots leaning Democratic manifests itself once again).
The “no” vote was remarkably close to Joe Biden’s performance in California in 2020 (he won 63.5 percent). Given the extreme partisan polarization that underlay the recall vote (exit polls showed 89 percent of self-identified Republicans voting “yes” and 94 percent of self-identified Democrats voting “no”), that means the partisan patterns of the presidential race were reduplicated to a remarkable extent in a non-presidential special election, where Democrats often experience a “falloff,” particularly when they control the White House (and in this case, the governorship). That’s great news for California Democrats, and not a bad sign for Democrats nationally, who are bracing for the midterm losses the “White House Party” typically suffers.
But in assessing the implications of the results, it’s important to look back at what happened down ballot in California in 2020, while looking ahead to the most critical 2022 battleground, the fight for control of the House. Of the 13 net House seats Republicans gained in 2020,Â
four were in deep-blue California. There is no likely path for Democrats to hang onto House control in 2022 without flipping some or all of those lost seats in one of their strongest states.
Precisely because of the reduplication of the 2020 patterns, there’s really nothing about the recall returns that suggests Democrats are sure to claw back some House seats in California. Two of the four seats Republicans flipped in 2020 (with Asian-American women Young Kim and Michelle Steele as candidates) were centered in Orange County. While “no” won in Orange, the recall race there was closer than the Biden-Trump contest of 2020. A third battleground seat was the one Republican David Valadao won in a very competitive section of the San Joaquin Valley. The recall improved on Trump’s 2020 performance in every county in his district (e.g., Trump won 55 percent in Kings County, but “yes” on recalling Newsom won 63 percent). These results could reflect an intensifying alienation of this heavily agricultural area from Sacramento’s environmental and water-supply policies. Or it could reflect a drop-off in Latino turnout that could spell disaster for Democrats in close 2022 races. Either way the recall numbers should give pause to Democratic optimism about midterm House races.
One study of 2020 returns in California showed Latino turnout trailing non-Latino turnout by about 10 percent. One mail-ballot tracker for the recall showed the turnout gap between Latinos and non-Latino white voters swelling to 20 percent. Youth turnout for the recall was also terrible, exit polls suggest. Yes, these are constituencies that are difficult to mobilize in special elections. But that’s also true of midterm elections, which is a problem Democrats in California and elsewhere need to solve.
The bottom line is that Newsom won the Democratic and Democratic-leaning elements of the California electorate by strongly encouraging partisan polarization via his lavishly funded campaign. This was the obvious smart strategy in this heavily Democratic state. It’s less clear the same strategy will work wonders downballot for Democrats in 2022, which they probably will not have a big financial advantage and shifts in public opinion away from the presidential winner may have settled in, as they did for the last three presidents. Even if Democrats hang onto their monopoly of statewide offices and their super-majorities in the state legislature, any failure to make progress in House races could contribute to the much-dreaded moment when Californian Nancy Pelosi hands over her gavel to Californian Kevin McCarthy, and the Democratic trifecta that gives Biden a chance to implement his agenda comes to an end.
Kerry will win by three. Now feel free to rest. 🙂
Well, you can try some of the meta-analysis sites out there. These analyze a bunch of polls through various means and try to estimate the outcome. I think you’ll be pleased with the results:
http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html
http://binomial.csuhayward.edu/WeeklyStatus.html
http://arrowheadengineering.com/
http://www.econ.umn.edu/~amoro/Research/presprobs.html
based on all the polls and interperetations of the polls and increase in voter reg and GOTV efforts and %blacks for kerry and % cuban americans for bush….i was just wondering when someone will tell me how much kerry will win by.
frankly i am exhasuted and would like to take a long rest….any convincing predictions out there?
This is their online poll, and it should be noted that this results differs markedly from the telephone poll released just a few days ago. In the poll, using the same definition of likely voters, Bush was up 8 points. (With the less stringest definition, Bush was up 2 points). This is a big swing of 9 points, but one was telephone, one was internet.
Personally, I have more faith in their Internet polls.
chris matthews said today kerry had the wind at his back and if the wind is still blowing in kerry’s direction tomorow(thursday) kerry will win.
chris matthew called the election for bush exactly 7 days ago.
larry o’donnel spent 10 solid minutes calling swift boat john o’neil a “liar” on scarbourgh 2 nights ago.
not “misleading’ …he called him a “lair” about 37 times , and very loudly. hats off to o’donnel.
You wonder whether Bush in fact has superfluous solid red support, and whether the non-solid-red polls, which really matter, might show 2% more for Kerry.
Isn’t this LV definition the same one that gave Bush a 51-43 edge in the October 14-17 Harris Poll?
Whether this reflects a real shift or just the LV definition working better closer to the election is another question.
I think the BUSH trend is “YOU”RE FIRED.” I was out cnvassing for MOVE ON last night. I called in TEN strong Kerry Edwards voters for ten stops. These were all voters that were not likely to be sampled by any major polling system. There is a vast undercurrent of anger towards the current administration which I think is starting to head towards a crest.
With such a robust sample, you can see that Bush’s MoE puts his ceiling at 49%. His ceiling, mind you.
It does seem that Kerry is breaking a hair ahead in national horse races.
The Harris Poll is the most encouraging poll yet. Last week they ran the poll and offered two different LV scenarios – one with those who will definitely vote AND voted in 2000, and the other with those who will definitely vote but did NOT vote in 2000 (and were old enough). In the second scenario, without 2000 voters, Kerry trailed Bush by 2 (48-46). In the first scenario that excludes new voters Kerry trailed by 8 (51-43). However, in the Harris Poll just released, the LV model resembles the first scenario of the last poll. In other words, Kerry didn’t just increase from -2 to +1, he moved from -8 to +1! That is incredible, if it is true, and shows a huge closing among undecideds for Kerry. I can only imagine what the number is for the second scenario voters now.
Notice how the WSJ headline writers just can’t bring themselves to say that it’s Kerry who is ahead in the latest Harris poll. You have to read to the end of the second paragraph to get that info. Compare that with some recent headlines characterizing Bush’s 1-pt leads as “surges” or “grabs”. I know, it’s no called the SCLM for nothing.
Harris seems to be something that slips under the radar, but from what I’ve heard they’re pretty good.
a trend seems to be emerging, and it’s not good news for George Bush.
Harris is underrepresenting new voters. Their likely voter screen:
“Likely Voters are defined as adults who are registered to vote and say they are “absolutely certain” to vote and, if they were old enough, voted in 2000.”
So if you didn’t vote in 2000 (unregistered, unmotivated) you don’t get counted. I think this poll is even better for Kerry than it seems on the surface.
Is it wishful thinking, or am I detecting a trend here? Kerry is up in the following: Democracy Corps 2 pts, LA Times up 1 pt, Harris 1 pt, and ABC News/Washingto Post 2 pts. Gallop has Bush ahead by only 4 which, if their internals have the same problems, is probably a dead heat. I suspect (and hope) that Kerry is doing his famous closing, and I think the 380 tonnes of missing explosives will galvanize the fence-sitter into KE direction.