Waldo Jaquith

I wonder to what extent the turnout in each locality is an indicator of the relative effectiveness and strength of the party apparatus in each locality. Is Falls Church known for having a really active, vital Democratic Party? Are Hopewell or Charles City known for having a particularly weak party?

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 15 June 2006 @ 1pm

I’m pretty familiar with Hopewell and I can tell you that the Democratic Party in Hopewell is essentially nonexistant.

Along with Poquoson and Colonial Heighs, Hopewell is probably one of the most Republican areas in Virginia.

Posted by Ben Kyber on 15 June 2006 @ 1pm

What’s “Arlington City?”

Posted by Lowell on 15 June 2006 @ 1pm

Same as Lowell… Tommorow in Charlottesville County will be fun:)

Posted by James Martin on 15 June 2006 @ 1pm

“Arlington City” was a) a byproduct of copying and pasting a big jumble of text and subsequently reassembling it badly and b) me being totally unfamiliar with Northern Virginia and thus not noticing the mistake. Arlington, Alexandria, Manassas, Loudoun…they’re all just a bunch of names to me.

I’ve fixed it now, of course.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 15 June 2006 @ 2pm

Falls Church is quite democratic, active & strong.

Posted by Jennifer on 15 June 2006 @ 3pm

Waldo, there is actually a group of people with no interest in federal elections but who will vote in statewide elections. It’s small, but significant enough to be noticed.

So, if they didn’t vote in 01, 04 or 05, nothing will get them to vote.

Posted by Dan on 15 June 2006 @ 3pm

Waldo -

When you divide these numbers out, you might want to use the Kaine vote totals instead of the hypothetical 50%

Posted by Paul on 15 June 2006 @ 3pm

Waldo, there is actually a group of people with no interest in federal elections but who will vote in statewide elections. It’s small, but significant enough to be noticed.

You know, I’ve never gone through and looked, but I wonder what the highest turnout percentage has been in the past decade or so. I can only assume that it was for a presidential election, but one never knows.

When you divide these numbers out, you might want to use the Kaine vote totals instead of the hypothetical 50%

I didn’t use the hypothetical 50% — “I’ve recentered turn-out figures based on the 2004 presidential election.”

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 15 June 2006 @ 3pm

Whoops, I misread you. sorry

Posted by Paul on 15 June 2006 @ 4pm

“I wonder to what extent the turnout in each locality is an indicator of the relative effectiveness and strength of the party apparatus”.

I suppose one does not have to follow the other: I am going out on a limb here and going to assume that if there is first, a population that actively votes, that same population would produce more activists, thus more party organization.

Supply side politics.

Posted by Jon Sheridan on 15 June 2006 @ 8pm

You know what I never ran into in Charlottesville or Albemarle Democratic party events? A Miller volunteer. Lots of paid staff brought in from out of town, but no volunteers. Wheras Webb had a couple of really dedicated volunteers who were local to Charlottesville and Albemarle. They made phone calls and they showed up at every political event to push James Webb and speak on his behalf.

Jim Webb really inspired a handful of people and captured their imaginations. In many races this doesn’t amount to much. When you have high turnout, that energy and activism is dwarfed by the effect of millions of dollars of spending on advertising. But in a very low turnout race, things are different. You’re left with the ‘serious’ voters who vote in every election, follow politics closely and are less affected by advertising than your average citizen. So that small cadre of dedicated volunteers who go out and talk to their friends and neighbors suddenly has a much larger proportionate effect.

From where I am, it always looked like Miller had some amount of support but not the same kind of fierce loyalty that James Webb inspires in his followers.

Posted by Jack on 16 June 2006 @ 9am

Waldo —

I already asked Kenton this question: Does anybody have the capability to do maps showing the sizes of the jurisdictions weighted by the primary votes cast? Sabato does it with state population — doing it with Tuesday’s results would stretch Fairfax County down to around Martinsville, and, more important, would show the true heft of little “Arlington City”. Can somebody do that, or do I have to ask Sabato?

Posted by Bob Brink on 16 June 2006 @ 10am

If Kenton can’t do it, can’t nobody do it. :)

The trouble with mapping software is that it’s expensive. There are a few off-the-shelf packages that will permit some pretty advanced stuff, but it’s rather a high shelf in a store that would throw me out if they saw me lingering near the door.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

See if you can buttonhole the Center for Politics’ Josh Scott at the Blog Summit. He’ll be moderating the Ethics panel. Maybe you can convince him to create such a map. :)

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 16 June 2006 @ 10am

Hey, if you’d made it the top eleven you could have given Rockbridge County its due! ;>

Being a Dem activist here, I’d love to think that vibrant party organization is responsible, but the truth is that Rockbridge County is under-registered. Therefore, turnout always looks better than it really is.

And, until things change dramatically at the national level, so that our party is really offering policies that help low-wage rural workers, we’re not about to do registration drives in the county. The culture war is still being won by the Rs here, and we’d end up registering many more voters for them than for our candidates.

Posted by Nell on 16 June 2006 @ 12pm

Probably the best explanation for the decent local turnout in this primary is that Dem activists here got a chance to see both candidates, because the 6th CD convention was held here.

We emailed our contact list to encourage people to take advantage of this one local campaign opportunity, and quite a few did. Then, I’m assuming, they talked about it with friends. Result: big Webb margins.

Posted by Nell on 16 June 2006 @ 12pm

Waldo,

You have too much time on your hands.

Posted by Drew on 20 June 2006 @ 10am

:)

Fortunately, this was really easy — two copies-and-pastes from Safari to Excel, a calculate field, and then a sort. Would that I had more time on my hands.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 20 June 2006 @ 11am