GOP crossovers not significant March 4

[sonias]

Postcards from the Lege blog 4/8/08
Jeff Smith: GOP crossovers not significant March 4

Just-completed research by Austin pollster Jeff Smith, who helps Democratic candidates, suggests that Republican voters didn’t widely cross over to vote in the March 4 Democratic primary in Texas. His breakdown—the first hard comparison of voters this year and voters in previous primaries—also suggests there was no surge in newly registered voters despite excitement about the GOP and Democratic presidential contests. Also, most Latino primary voters and most young primary voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary.

Smith’s review of crossover voting should put to bed serious claims that many Republicans leaped into the Democratic fray to keep Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy—and her battle against Sen. Barack Obama—off life support. Some suggested that a bunch of Republicans crossed over to make a little trouble for Democrats and believing that Sen. John McCain of Arizona was already the presumptive GOP presidential nominee—though he didn’t have his party’s nod secured until after he won Texas and other states.

Clinton won the Democrats’ popular vote in March, but is believed to be trailing Obama in total delegates from Texas because of Obama’s success in primary-night precinct caucuses. Each candidate’s delegate haul will be resolved at the state party’s June convention in Austin.

There's a link to a spreadsheet you can download to see the effect in the Texas counties. It's a good read.

:kick:

Sonia

[sonias]

1. Primaries not dominated by usual suspects

Snipped from the same article linked above:

Two more factoids courtesy of Smith: More than 89 percent of Hispanic primary voters, whom voter surveys suggest leaned toward Clinton, voted in the Democratic primary. More than 77 percent of primary voters under age 30 voted Democratic too.

"For both parties," Smith says, "the turnout in the primaries was not dominated by the usual suspects." Nearly 60 percent of voters in the Democratic primary and about 44 percent of Republican primary voters had not turned out for that particular party’s primary before.

I love that 77% of young voters (under 30) voted Democratic. Yes!!!
:woohoo:


Sonia

[sonias]

2. Gardner Selby on the analysis of crossover votes

Gardner's Commentary 4/10/08
Pollster finds no GOP rush to vote Democratic
(snip)
By Smith's look, about 4 percent of Democratic voters this year voted in the 2006 GOP primary. He found that 7 percent of voters in the Democratic primary voted in at least one of the three most recent Republican primaries, with nearly 12 percent voting in a Republican primary since 1992.

His research matched up with GOP pollster Mike Baselice's post-primary declaration that the share of Republicans crossing over would prove to be about the same as the 7 percent of GOP voters who crossed over in 2006.

Smith said the lack of a surge in crossover voters signals there wasn't meaningful GOP meddling on behalf of Clinton or Obama.

Then again, if most crossover voters favored Clinton, they might have fueled her 101,000-vote edge.

Four percent of the vote for president in Texas amounted to nearly 115,000 votes, and 7 percent is nearly 201,000. So Republicans could have accounted for Clinton's margin, assuming most voted in Limbaugh'd-lockstep.

See Selby sees it more like I do. Who decides what is significant? I say that either 4% or 7% is pretty damn significant!

Sonia

[Melissa G]

3. Glad you posted this second comment.It seems to mirror my experience. n/t