D

Little Noted Story: GOP Early Voting Also Surging

An analysis from the indispensable Quorum Report shows that Republicans are also turning out in record numbers for Tuesday’s primary. Even so, their numbers are dwarfed by the Demo turnout. Who the new GOP voters are is a mystery, and much, of course, depends on local races. For veteran GOP political observer Royal Masset, who like me has long despaired of the direction of today’s GOP, the incredibly high Demo numbers portend disaster for Republicans in the fall. The full story (thank you, Harvey!) is below the break:

PARSING WHAT THE EARLY VOTE MEANS FOR GOP

Bad year for incumbents in both primaries and general election?

For a while now, Royal Masset has played the part of the prophet Jeremiah to the Republican Party of Texas, warning that the Party’s current anti-immigrant stance could lead it directly into political exile. Last summer, the longtime GOP political operative wrote a column for QR in which he lamented a drift from the ideas espoused by Ronald Reagan.

“In one of his last speeches Reagan counseled us to appeal to the better angels of our nature by focusing on our hopes and not our fears,” he wrote. “Unfortunately the current Republican leadership isn’t following Reagan’s wish. If the Republican Party has a coherent philosophy I don’t know what it is. We’re certainly not on the side of liberty. We used to believe in family. But now we oppose the Latino culture that is far more family friendly than ours.”

Looking at the early voting numbers for the respective party primaries, Masset now sees the makings of a political tsunami greater than the annus horribilis of 2006. The nearly minute-by-minute coverage of the Democratic presidential primary in Texas has undoubtedly captured the attention of the state’s voters. Some argue that such attention is good too for the Republicans, sort of a rising tide lifting all boats argument.

Masset, though, is focused on what he said was the telling stat, party primary turnout as percentage of the total number of registered voters. On that score, the GOP is lagging terribly behind the Democratic Party. (see the second table at the bottom of this story)

The Secretary of State’s Office tracks early voting by day in each of the state’s 15 most populous counties. Taken together, the 7.8 million registered voters in those counties account for a little more than 60 percent of the state’s registered voters.

While most eyes have been focused on staggering Democratic turnout, they have missed the fact that Republican turnout has also surged, generally doubling in the fifteen largest counties. (see the first table at bottom of story)

As of Wednesday, the percentage of registered voters taking part in the Democratic primary has nearly tripled the percentage voting in the Republican primary – 7.7 percent to 2.6 percent.

What gets Masset’s attention is the fact that Republican turnout has exceeded 5 percent of registered voters in just one of the 15 most populous counties, Montgomery County. Conversely, Montgomery County is the only place where Democratic turnout has been less then 5 percent. (see the first table at the bottom of the story).

In the predominately Latino Rio Grande Valley, the disparity is even greater. In Cameron County (Brownsville), 9.75 percent of the registered voters have participated in the Democratic primary. The Republican primary hadn’t cracked a single percentage point – 0.97 percent – as of Wednesday. In Hidalgo County (Edinburg), the spread is even larger, 13.10 percent to 0.82 percent.

What worries Masset the most is that he figures upward of 80 percent of those new Democratic voters will return to cast ballots in the fall. “If they’re excited now, they’ll probably stay excited,” he said. In addition, the Democratic Party will have those voters in their database for outreach efforts later this year.

Masset looks at places like Collin County and Williamson County where Republicans hold every local office but Democrats are coming out this primary season in greater numbers than Republicans. The trends are adding up to an even better year for Democrats than in 2006, he said. And with a charismatic Obama at the top of the Democratic ticket and McCain seemingly unable to unite his party, Masset suggested any GOP incumbent who won last time with less than 60 percent of the vote should be concerned. Anyone who won with less than 55 percent of the vote is in trouble, he said.

GOP pollster Mike Baselice has a different take on the early voting numbers. Looking at the raw numbers, GOP participation is running much higher than in the two previous presidential primaries that had Texan George W. Bush at the top of the ticket.

More than 35,000 people have cast votes in the GOP primary in Harris County, for instance. That’s two-and-a-half times as large a turnout as in 2004 more than twice the number from 2000. The jump in participation is even higher in Dallas and Tarrant Counties. In both places, GOP participation in raw numbers is more than six times the level in 2004.

Baselice said that those early voting numbers suggest to him that the GOP could have as many as 1.5 million votes cast in its primary and that 4 million votes could be cast between both parties. He called those numbers unprecedented.

And while that number is sure to be dwarfed by the number of Democratic primary votes, Baselice is not necessarily worried about Republican candidates’ chances in the fall. He noted that the state tilts toward Republicans by about nine points. So all things being equal, the GOP candidate starts most races with a 55-45 advantage, he said.

High turnout on both sides is a good thing for the Republican Party because it helps them rework their voters’ lists and better target likely Republican voters, he said.

While that’s fascinating, the practical question for GOP candidates and the people paid to help get those candidates elected is pretty simple. Who are these voters and what are their intentions? Are they new voters or are they Republican voters who normally vote only in the general election but have been caught up the excitement this year? More importantly, what are their intentions? Are they angry and want change?

It might not be possible to know the answers to these questions until Wednesday morning but anxiety among incumbents about big turnout numbers might be behind reports of big late money being flowing into some GOP House races. QR has reported that Gov. Perry has directed a significant amount of late money into the campaigns of Nathan Macías, Charles “Doc” Anderson, Phil King, Mark Shelton and Dee Margo. James Leininger has also ramped up his check writing late in the game.

What’s striking Baselice is that many of the early GOP voters appear to be new voters. It’s difficult to arrive at general conclusions about new voters so it’s next to impossible to know what effect they might have on contested GOP House primaries. Baselice said that if he were advising a candidate right now, he’d be saying that they should have invested in more mailers targeting people who aren’t the typical GOP primary voter.

What could work against the GOP is voter apathy, he said. The Democratic presidential candidates have so dominated this part of the election season that it’s not possible to know the mood of the Republican electorate. Party leaders need to make sure GOP voters don’t stay home in November. Otherwise, races in Harris County or Dallas County could tip toward the Democrats, he said.

There’s no telling at this point in the game whether the interest in the presidential contest will carry to the down ballot races in Texas. And there is certainly nothing to suggest how the general election will shape up since the Democratic nominee will presumably pay less attention in the fall to what is still one of the reddest states in the nation.

But Masset clearly sees ominous portents in the trends in his own Party combined with the once-in-a-generation aspects of the Obama candidacy.

“I’m not feeling optimistic,” he said. “This just shows we are a bankrupt party. Who would have ever imagined that the next Ronald Reagan would be a black Democrat?”

ã Copyright February 29, 2008 by Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved