Guest contributor Amy Walter looks at the political landscape in the aftermath of this week's special election in California.
Much was expected from this special election contest to replace convicted Rep. Duke Cunningham. This was the first election where big national issues like immigration and the "culture of corruption" were making a debut. And, an anxious national press was looking for a bellwether for Election Night 2006.
In the end, like most special elections, the outcome does not give us a crisp, clean roadmap for November.
Polling leading up to the weekend before the election showed a close race, with both candidates stuck in the mid-40's. But, as we had written from the very beginning, Busby could not win simply by getting her voters to the polls. The Democratic base in this heavily Republican district makes up just 44-45 percent of the vote. To win, she needed Republican voters to either stay home or to vote for one of the third party candidates. Busby even ran advertising encouraging conservative Republicans to support William Griffith.
Ultimately, undecided Republicans came home to Bilbray. Busby's last minute gaffe was likely a big reason for this. Republicans wanted to make this race about immigration -- where even Democrats conceded Bilbray had the advantage, but Democrats and Busby were effective in turning the spotlight onto issues that benefited her such as Bilbray's role as a lobbyist and the votes he missed to take a "special interest trip" to Australia as a member of Congress. With that comment, however, Busby turned the debate back onto terrain where Bilbray had the advantage.
Pre-eminent congressional scholar Gary Jacobson of the University of California San Diego notes that Busby actually did better than simply win the Democratic vote. She also got a bigger share of independents. Busby got 55,587 votes in the special election, almost 10,000 more votes than were cast in the Democratic primary (45,868). The special election and the regular primary were held on the same day. Bilbray, meanwhile, took 60,319 votes in the run-off election, while 59,195 votes were cast in the Republican primary. "Without too great an inferential leap," writes Jacobson, "we could conclude that Bilbray got the Republicans, Busby got the Democrats and a disproportionate share of the rest--just not enough to win."
Furthermore, notes Jacobson, when looking at party registration figures, it is clear that Democrats were more energized than Republicans. Bilbray's vote, he notes, was 38.6 percent of the number of Republican registrants, Busby's was 52.7 percent of the number of Democratic registrants. Based on the primary election vote, he notes, Democratic turnout was 43.8 percent, while Republican turnout was 37.8 percent.
So what's the bottom line lesson here? While a loss would have been disastrous for the Republicans, a win does not suggest that they are going to have an easy time this fall. In more marginal districts with stronger Democratic candidates and/or weakened Republican candidates, the political environment is certainly enough of a factor to take a toll. It's clear that Bilbray was unable to get the "soft" Republican voters that have traditionally broken for Republicans in the past, but in this heavily Republican district, he could afford to lose these voters. Republican incumbents who sit in more marginal districts do not have that luxury. For them, even a two or three point dip in turn-out could be politically fatal.
-- Amy Walter is Senior Editor of the Cook Political Report, where a longer version of this piece appeared.
June 8, 2006
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