The 2014 primary season ends (Sept. 9: DE, MA, NH, NY, RI)

[smoltchanov]

If there are two GOP candidates in the general for Controller in November, you can bet Perez is going to be eating some tough [inks] from the party.

If there are two, the California Democratic party needs to put their full forces behind repealing our idiotic top two system. The results are still early, but it's unsettling that 2 Republicans lead for the Controller race, and aren't far off from leading in CA-31 again.

Even if Perez/Yee sneak through, at the time of this post Perez's lead over Evans has reduced to 1924 votes. California needs to do its best to get rid of top two. It's just terrible election policy. Maybe we should do a popular referendum. My bet is that top two would die if it went up for a vote in 2016.

The problem is not with top 2, it's with abysmal laziness of Democratic electorate to turn out in ANY elections, but few chosen. And i don't want to give a bunch of hyperpolarised (on the verge to being "crazy") "activists" in both major parties a right to decide who will be next Governor, Senator or Congressman. So, i am absolutely in favor of "top 2", which gives indies, who dislike both parties (like me), a much better choice.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If there are two GOP candidates in the general for Controller in November, you can bet Perez is going to be eating some tough [inks] from the party.

If there are two, the California Democratic party needs to put their full forces behind repealing our idiotic top two system. The results are still early, but it's unsettling that 2 Republicans lead for the Controller race, and aren't far off from leading in CA-31 again.

Even if Perez/Yee sneak through, at the time of this post Perez's lead over Evans has reduced to 1924 votes. California needs to do its best to get rid of top two. It's just terrible election policy. Maybe we should do a popular referendum. My bet is that top two would die if it went up for a vote in 2016.

Hopefully it could be defeated. It passed on the June 2010 ballot. Strangely it got 53.74%, but passed in all but 3 counties, 2 of which were San Francisco and Orange.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_14_(2010)

If there are two GOP candidates in the general for Controller in November, you can bet Perez is going to be eating some tough [inks] from the party.

If there are two, the California Democratic party needs to put their full forces behind repealing our idiotic top two system. The results are still early, but it's unsettling that 2 Republicans lead for the Controller race, and aren't far off from leading in CA-31 again.

Even if Perez/Yee sneak through, at the time of this post Perez's lead over Evans has reduced to 1924 votes. California needs to do its best to get rid of top two. It's just terrible election policy. Maybe we should do a popular referendum. My bet is that top two would die if it went up for a vote in 2016.

The problem is not with top 2, it's with abysmal laziness of Democratic electorate to turn out in ANY elections, but few chosen. And i don't want to give a bunch of hyperpolarised (on the verge to being "crazy") "activists" in both major parties a right to decide who will be next Governor, Senator or Congressman. So, i am absolutely in favor of "top 2", which gives indies, who dislike both parties (like me), a much better choice.

LOL, 2 Republicans and no one else isn't much of a choice.

[bayareademocrat]

So, to introduce myself, I am a 19 year old Democrat from the East Bay. Yesterday was my first voting election. Today I joined this site. In my free time I play around with ideas from elections, so here is what I got from the numbers today. Sorry that I am partisan and include some opinion in my psephology which should be a non-partisan practice,but nobody can be perfect.

First I studied the performance of Neel Kashkari vs. Donnelly by county.  Here is the link to results of anybody who is curious/wants to check my work: vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/governor/county/all/. My original hypothesis was that Donnelly would outperform Kashkari in more Republican areas.So I divided the counties into 3 groups. 1. Brown outperforms state avg. Brown>.545. 2. Brown mildly under performs .545>Brown>.445 and 3. Brown severely under performs, Brown<.445.  This did not lead to anything because group 1 had Donnelly beating Kashkari (D>K) 10/18 of the time. In two it was (5/12) and in 3 it was (13/27). This went nowhere.

So I decided to take a look at places where D>K. The following counties are where D>K. Alameda, Alpine, Butte, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Glenn, Imperial, Kern, Lake, Lassen, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Napa, Nevada, Plumas, San Benito, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity. The pattern I discerned from this is that the more conservative candidate won in areas that were either sparsely populated or so Democratic that Republicans could not create a normal party structure. The exceptions being San Bernardino, Kern and arguably San Luis Obispo and Shasta. Coming off of this hypothesis I decided to look at places where the difference between Kashkari and Donnelly was wider than the state as a whole. So K-D>4.2. The following counties qualified: Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Fresno, Kings, Los Angeles, Madera, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Joaquin, Sutter, Tulare, Ventura, Yolo, and Yuba. Despite only containing 18/58 of the state's counties. This group of counties includes almost every major Californian city outside the Bay Area. In the D/K groups the only cities in the top 20 population wise outside of the Bay Area are San Bernardino and Bakersfield.

So in conclusion, in the state of California, based off of the 2014 gubernatorial primary, when faced with a choice between a Tea Partier and a Moderate, The Tea Partier will win in extremely liberal places and sparsely populated areas. The Moderate will win in cities that are conservative enough to have an established Republican structure in place. I will look through other results later this week in similarly built states to see if this holds. Feedback is appreciated. Hopefully this made some sense.

[smoltchanov]

LOL, 2 Republicans and no one else isn't much of a choice.

Not a big one. But there was an ample choice in primary. Most people decided that 2 Republicans were the most deserving people in this paarticular district (in many other these were 2 Democrats). That's absolutely fine with me. What people like me got BEFORE: a pair of candidates, chosen by "activists", both of which they frequently despised, and voted for those, whom they hated least. Is THAT a choice?

[Miles]

^Welcome!

[badgate]

Welcome, bayareademocrat, and great first (or second) post!

[smoltchanov]

So, to introduce myself, I am a 19 year old Democrat from the East Bay. Yesterday was my first voting election. Today I joined this site. In my free time I play around with ideas from elections, so here is what I got from the numbers today. Sorry that I am partisan and include some opinion in my psephology which should be a non-partisan practice,but nobody can be perfect.

First I studied the performance of Neel Kashkari vs. Donnelly by county.  Here is the link to results of anybody who is curious/wants to check my work: vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/governor/county/all/. My original hypothesis was that Donnelly would outperform Kashkari in more Republican areas.So I divided the counties into 3 groups. 1. Brown outperforms state avg. Brown>.545. 2. Brown mildly under performs .545>Brown>.445 and 3. Brown severely under performs, Brown<.445.  This did not lead to anything because group 1 had Donnelly beating Kashkari (D>K) 10/18 of the time. In two it was (5/12) and in 3 it was (13/27). This went nowhere.

So I decided to take a look at places where D>K. The following counties are where D>K. Alameda, Alpine, Butte, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Glenn, Imperial, Kern, Lake, Lassen, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Napa, Nevada, Plumas, San Benito, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity. The pattern I discerned from this is that the more conservative candidate won in areas that were either sparsely populated or so Democratic that Republicans could not create a normal party structure. The exceptions being San Bernardino, Kern and arguably San Luis Obispo and Shasta. Coming off of this hypothesis I decided to look at places where the difference between Kashkari and Donnelly was wider than the state as a whole. So K-D>4.2. The following counties qualified: Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Fresno, Kings, Los Angeles, Madera, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Joaquin, Sutter, Tulare, Ventura, Yolo, and Yuba. Despite only containing 18/58 of the state's counties. This group of counties includes almost every major Californian city outside the Bay Area. In the D/K groups the only cities in the top 20 population wise outside of the Bay Area are San Bernardino and Bakersfield.

So in conclusion, in the state of California, based off of the 2014 gubernatorial primary, when faced with a choice between a Tea Partier and a Moderate, The Tea Partier will win in extremely liberal places and sparsely populated areas. The Moderate will win in cities that are conservative enough to have an established Republican structure in place. I will look through other results later this week in similarly built states to see if this holds. Feedback is appreciated. Hopefully this made some sense.

This makes a lot of sense and thanks for good analysis. IMHO, the reason why hardliners like Donnelly win in the most liberal areas of the state (like Bay Area) is very simple - few remaining Republicans there (or, at least, active part of them) tend to be a "diehard" type, living in "homes attacked and besieged by enemy" - and vote correspondingly. Traditionally, many Bay Area Republicans (which were elected from area until 1990 or, in few cases, until app. 2000) were of very moderate, even openly progressive variety, but older of them are now dead, and for their children and grandchildren there is very little sense to stay Republican.

[Miles]

This makes a lot of sense and thanks for good analysis. IMHO, the reason why hardliners like Donnelly win in the most liberal areas of the state (like Bay Area) is very simple - few remaining Republicans there (or, at least, active part of them) tend to be a "diehard" type, living in "homes attacked and besieged by enemy" - and vote correspondingly. Traditionally, many Bay Area Republicans (which were elected from area until 1990 or, in few cases, until app. 2000) were of very moderate, even openly progressive variety, but older of them are now dead, and for their children and grandchildren there is very little sense to stay Republican.

Sounds about right.

[smoltchanov]

This makes a lot of sense and thanks for good analysis. IMHO, the reason why hardliners like Donnelly win in the most liberal areas of the state (like Bay Area) is very simple - few remaining Republicans there (or, at least, active part of them) tend to be a "diehard" type, living in "homes attacked and besieged by enemy" - and vote correspondingly. Traditionally, many Bay Area Republicans (which were elected from area until 1990 or, in few cases, until app. 2000) were of very moderate, even openly progressive variety, but older of them are now dead, and for their children and grandchildren there is very little sense to stay Republican.

Sounds about right.

Exactly what i meant. And it's a pity - in the past this area supplied excellent and thoughtful Republican legislators anyone (even Democrats) could be proud of...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

LOL, 2 Republicans and no one else isn't much of a choice.

Not a big one. But there was an ample choice in primary. Most people decided that 2 Republicans were the most deserving people in this paarticular district (in many other these were 2 Democrats). That's absolutely fine with me. What people like me got BEFORE: a pair of candidates, chosen by "activists", both of which they frequently despised, and voted for those, whom they hated least. Is THAT a choice?

The turnout is really low in the primary. And you have at most 2 choices in November. I was forced to abstain in the 2012 Senate race for lack of a non horrible candidate.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

This makes a lot of sense and thanks for good analysis. IMHO, the reason why hardliners like Donnelly win in the most liberal areas of the state (like Bay Area) is very simple - few remaining Republicans there (or, at least, active part of them) tend to be a "diehard" type, living in "homes attacked and besieged by enemy" - and vote correspondingly. Traditionally, many Bay Area Republicans (which were elected from area until 1990 or, in few cases, until app. 2000) were of very moderate, even openly progressive variety, but older of them are now dead, and for their children and grandchildren there is very little sense to stay Republican.

Sounds about right.

Exactly what i meant. And it's a pity - in the past this area supplied excellent and thoughtful Republican legislators anyone (even Democrats) could be proud of...

Bay area Democrats certainly go right-wing enough with noted anti-atheist bigot Eric Swallwell.

[Miles]

CA Controller maps:




2nd place:

[smoltchanov]

This makes a lot of sense and thanks for good analysis. IMHO, the reason why hardliners like Donnelly win in the most liberal areas of the state (like Bay Area) is very simple - few remaining Republicans there (or, at least, active part of them) tend to be a "diehard" type, living in "homes attacked and besieged by enemy" - and vote correspondingly. Traditionally, many Bay Area Republicans (which were elected from area until 1990 or, in few cases, until app. 2000) were of very moderate, even openly progressive variety, but older of them are now dead, and for their children and grandchildren there is very little sense to stay Republican.

Sounds about right.

Exactly what i meant. And it's a pity - in the past this area supplied excellent and thoughtful Republican legislators anyone (even Democrats) could be proud of...

Bay area Democrats certainly go right-wing enough with noted anti-atheist bigot Eric Swallwell.

In some sense Swallwell occupies exactly the niche moderate-to-liberal Republicans of the past recently had. No surprises here. The "business Democrats" of today (of which there are lots now) are lineal descendants of them...

[bayareademocrat]

Good hypothesis Smoltchanov. I'm just thinking about the Republicans from around here (Alameda Co.) that I know (all about 15 of them). All but four are Tea Party types, and all they do is complain about living in such a liberal area. So it makes sense that the moderate Republicans in the area would just switch to DTS or Dem.

[Senate Minority Leader Lord Voldemort]

Yep. Perez is still up with about 2400 with 100% in. Wow. And last night it looked like he would be the GOP's spoiler in this race.

I'm not sure this is over yet. Absentee ballots dropped of on election day are generally not counted right away.

Aren't the democrats the ones who put that system into place? It's hilarious they keep being screwed by it.

It was a Proposition. The Democrats and Arnold did refer it to the voters as part of Republican Abel Maldonado's extortion for voting for a budget. Too bad that the Proposition reducing the 2/3rds majority to simple for passing a budget didn't pass a little earlier. I think all 6 political parties opposed the Proposition.

I think it's probably safe to say that Perez will make the runoff. Don't absentees tend to favor Democrats?

Schwarzenegger and Maldonado were the only two people who publicly backed prop 14 in 2010 to chance the primary system. The legislature had to stomach sending the prop to the voters as part of a compromise to get the budget through. Basically everyone prayed it wouldn't pass, but it did 53-47ish.

I thought it still took a 2/3 majority to pass a budget? No reason to change that rule since the legislature's majorities tend to be so lopsided anyway.

That statement confuses me. Everyone prayed it wouldn't pass, but it did? Doesn't that seem to imply that a majority of people wanted it to pass?

I'm guessing party leadership didn't want it to pass.

Sorry, too vague. I meant every political party in the state condemned the prop.

[Badger]

Welcome, bayareademocrat, and great first (or second) post!

[bayareademocrat]

So I guess that I'm on summer and have nothing better to do, I will post what I have here. Today I examined something I found troubling as a Democrat in the statewide elections Tuesday. We have astonishingly terrible discipline. Not knowing how to vote nearly (and still could but likely wont) cost us a candidate in the Controller's race and gave an embarrassing amount of the vote to Leland Yee in the Secretary of State's vote. This is problematic. As a result I wanted to map the offenders and see if the problem is more or less localized or if it is statewide. The measurement I used is overperformance based on partisan vote. To form this I took the "bad" candidate's number in a county and divided it by total Democratic votes in that county.
First the results for the Secretary of State's Race: Yee's proportion of Democratic share statewide was .1884. So any county Where Yee>.1884 is on my sh**t list. The counties were Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Del Norte, El Dorado, Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lassen, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Monterey, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Benito, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Solano, Trinity, Tulare, and Tuolumne. This makes up 35 of the 58 (.603) counties in the state. The GOP candidate won 31 of these for (31/35) (.8857). He won 40 counties statewide so .775 of his counties were Yee overperformers. Absent from the bad list is a vast majority (14/18) of districts captured by the main Democrat, Padilla.

Then I moved onto the disaster of the night, the still unresolved race for Controller. Nobody on this site has mentioned the stinker candidate that could have sunk us here, Tammy Blair. A completely random Democrat, who is not in line with any real movement in our state. Blair somehow gained 5.2% of the vote statewide. When I isolated this to only Democratic votes she receives .1082 of the Democratic vote. She overperformed in 41 counties, of which 37 of these went red. In the counties were she underperformed her Dem avg. (Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Los Angeles, Marin, Monterey, Nevada, Placer, San Benito, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma and Yolo). The Democrat won 12 times. In Fresno, the low Democratic amounts could be explained partially due to the fact that the mayor of Fresno was a Republican nominee and therefore only the hardest core Democrats would not be voting for her. Otherwise it strikes me as a very geographical explanation. All three major metropolitan areas in the state (The Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego) were underperformers for this race. I am still trying to think of a theory on why some counties have better inner party discipline than others, but for now my hypothesis is the following, typically more Democratic areas will have better party discipline than less Democratic areas. This is especially true in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the two areas of the state where the Democratic Party spends the most resources on turnout and information. Please comment your feedback, criticisms, and theories on why this difference occurs. Message me if you want the full data.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The second Republican is narrowly in second place for CA Controller now. Democratic turnout was poor, and that's very bad with the stupid top two system. It really needs to be repealed.

Current numbers.

John A. Pérez
(Party Preference: DEM)
665,109   
21.6%
Betty T. Yee
(Party Preference: DEM)
660,103   
21.4%
David Evans
(Party Preference: REP)
666,252   
21.6%

[IceSpear]

The second Republican is narrowly in second place for CA Controller now. Democratic turnout was poor, and that's very bad with the stupid top two system. It really needs to be repealed.

Current numbers.

John A. Pérez
(Party Preference: DEM)
665,109   
21.6%
Betty T. Yee
(Party Preference: DEM)
660,103   
21.4%
David Evans
(Party Preference: REP)
666,252   
21.6%

How many ballots are left to count?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The second Republican is narrowly in second place for CA Controller now. Democratic turnout was poor, and that's very bad with the stupid top two system. It really needs to be repealed.

Current numbers.

John A. Pérez
(Party Preference: DEM)
665,109   
21.6%
Betty T. Yee
(Party Preference: DEM)
660,103   
21.4%
David Evans
(Party Preference: REP)
666,252   
21.6%

How many ballots are left to count?

About a million.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/statewide-elections/2014-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf

[Senate Minority Leader Lord Voldemort]

The second Republican is narrowly in second place for CA Controller now. Democratic turnout was poor, and that's very bad with the stupid top two system. It really needs to be repealed.

Current numbers.

John A. Pérez
(Party Preference: DEM)
665,109   
21.6%
Betty T. Yee
(Party Preference: DEM)
660,103   
21.4%
David Evans
(Party Preference: REP)
666,252   
21.6%

How many ballots are left to count?

About a million.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/statewide-elections/2014-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf

Hopefully since LA (Perez territory) makes up the largest portion of uncounted ballots, they will come in strong for him. Or is that wishful thinking?

[publicunofficial]

The second Republican is narrowly in second place for CA Controller now. Democratic turnout was poor, and that's very bad with the stupid top two system. It really needs to be repealed.

Current numbers.

John A. Pérez
(Party Preference: DEM)
665,109   
21.6%
Betty T. Yee
(Party Preference: DEM)
660,103   
21.4%
David Evans
(Party Preference: REP)
666,252   
21.6%

How many ballots are left to count?

About a million.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/statewide-elections/2014-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf

Hopefully since LA (Perez territory) makes up the largest portion of uncounted ballots, they will come in strong for him. Or is that wishful thinking?

The late votes have always been consistently D-leaning. They drive up D numbers more often than they drive up R numbers.

[Senate Minority Leader Lord Voldemort]

The second Republican is narrowly in second place for CA Controller now. Democratic turnout was poor, and that's very bad with the stupid top two system. It really needs to be repealed.

Current numbers.

John A. Pérez
(Party Preference: DEM)
665,109   
21.6%
Betty T. Yee
(Party Preference: DEM)
660,103   
21.4%
David Evans
(Party Preference: REP)
666,252   
21.6%

How many ballots are left to count?

About a million.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/statewide-elections/2014-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf

Hopefully since LA (Perez territory) makes up the largest portion of uncounted ballots, they will come in strong for him. Or is that wishful thinking?

The late votes have always been consistently D-leaning. They drive up D numbers more often than they drive up R numbers.

Yes, but the idea is that LA is Perez's home turf, which should boost his numbers over the other two Democrats' numbers.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The second Republican is narrowly in second place for CA Controller now. Democratic turnout was poor, and that's very bad with the stupid top two system. It really needs to be repealed.

Current numbers.

John A. Pérez
(Party Preference: DEM)
665,109   
21.6%
Betty T. Yee
(Party Preference: DEM)
660,103   
21.4%
David Evans
(Party Preference: REP)
666,252   
21.6%

How many ballots are left to count?

About a million.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/statewide-elections/2014-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf

Hopefully since LA (Perez territory) makes up the largest portion of uncounted ballots, they will come in strong for him. Or is that wishful thinking?

I wouldn't get too excited about Los Angeles. I think their share of outstanding ballots is less than their share of total ballots.

However, uncounted ballots tend to be a little more Democratic for other reasons.

[Tender Branson]

June 10 results:

Arkansas

Maine

Nevada

North Dakota

South Carolina

Virginia