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2010 Primary Season Recap. An HEG Presentation www.hegllc.org. Overview. The 2010 Primary election was a high profile election that featured several current or former elected officials running for a different office
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2010 Primary Season Recap An HEG Presentation www.hegllc.org
Overview • The 2010 Primary election was a high profile election that featured several current or former elected officials running for a different office • The Gubernatorial Campaign featured a total of 14 candidates, 7 for each party • Due to the similarities in experience and number of candidates on both sides, this Primary can be viewed as a solid predictor of the General Election, all things equal
July 20th Gubernatorial Election • 1,075,966 ballots were cast in the Gubernatorial campaigns across parties • 680,499 or 63.2% of these ballots were Republican • 395,467 or 36.8% of these ballots were Democrat • Democratic performance was 58.1% that of Republican
July 20th Senate Election • 910,683 persons voted in the election for the US Senate. • 558,298 or 61.3% voted on the Republican ballot • 352,385 or 38.7% voted on the Democrat ballot • Democratic performance was 63.1% that of Republicans
August 10th Primary Runoff • There were four statewide offices with a Primary Runoff on the Republican ballot (Governor, Attorney General, Insurance Commissioner and Public Service Commissioner) and one on the Democratic ballot
August 10thPrimary Runoff- Notes • Every Republican statewide office in the Runoff had a higher turnout than any Democratic statewide race in the Primary. • 679,471 votes were cast in the two statewide elections with the highest turnout (Republican Governor and Democratic SOS) • 85.1% of the turnout voted in the Republican Primary, 14.9% in the Democratic
The Fulcrum The table below looks at the Primary turnout in the 13 counties with 50,000 or more African Americans (2000 Census)
The Fulcrum Primary Runoff The table below looks at the Primary Runoff turnout in the 13 counties with 50,000 or more African Americans (2000 Census)
Observations • More Republican ballots were cast than Democratic ones in these key counties in both elections • These counties only represented 35.5% of the Republican ballots cast in the Primary while they represented more than half (57.2%) of all the Democratic ballots cast. • These counties represented 36.9% of Republican ballots in the runoff, while they again represented more than half (57.85%) of all Democratic ballots.
Conclusions • Given the politically polarized environment and the various partisan approaches, there will be only a few swing voters • The races therefore will focus simply on turnout. Given both the Primary and the Primary Runoff numbers, Republican candidates will be heavily favored to win every statewide election.
Recommendations • Turnout • Gwinnett County will be a key in the election (http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/deal-handel-battle-till-589315.html) • Democrats must increase turnout in the targeted counties. Key task: Turnout • Republicans must maintain the relative performance in the key counties. Key task: Suppression
Citations • Primary Election Turnout (overall and by county): http://sos.georgia.gov/elections/election_results/ • Population Data: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=n&_lang=en&mt_name=DEC_2000_PL_U_GCTPL_ST2&format=ST-2&_box_head_nbr=GCT-PL&ds_name=DEC_2000_PL_U&geo_id=04000US13