hurricanehink
Jr. Member
Posts: 610
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« on: February 25, 2016, 02:08:11 PM » |
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I know Alaska hasn't voted for the Democrats for president since 1964, but the state seems like it should be ripe for investment for the Democratic Party. There are plenty of the same liberals who populate Oregon and Washington, but who have a libertarian streak. The citizens rely on plenty of pork spending (much infrastructure provided by longtime Senator Stevens), while at the same time relying on money from the state due to oil revenues. If not for Alaska's remote location and the oil money (which is decreasing now due to the lowering oil prices), would this be an area for Democrats to invest in the future?
In 2012, Alaska increased its share of votes to President Obama to 40.81%, up from 37.89% in 2008. Some might argue this is a Palin effect, that she was on the ballot in '08 helped her. It's possibly true - the number of Republican votes declined by 29,165 from 2008 to 2012, while Democratic votes declined just 954 votes, indictating stable Democratic turnout, and a sizable base. However, 2008 also had a competitive house race (Berkowitz was the former minority leader of the Alaskan House), and a competitive Senate race in which Begich won (barely) over Ted Stevens. 2012 was a fairly neutral election - the house race had a state representative as the Democratic candidate, and Democrats still did well.
Meanwhile, in the Republican wave of 2014 that saw the GOP winning in Maryland, Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois, and Colorado, a random attorney did better in Alaska's at-large house race (winning 31,675 more votes than the state representative did in 2012, and increasing percentage of votes from 28.61% in 2012 to 40.97% in 2014). Also, while Mark Begich lost the senate race, he only dropped 22,336 votes from his win in 2008. This was less than the number of Republican votes for president lost from 2008 to 2012.
Here is a little sheet showing the voting totals from 2004 to 2014, for each major election in the state. For 2010 senate, I included the write-in votes for Murkowski and for the official Republican candidate.
A little analysis is needed. For House races, there is an average of 280,977 votes cast overall. For Senate, the number is 291,796. For Governor it is 258,152, and for President it is 313,478. As Senate and President has the highest overall votes (and higher percentage of the vote typically helps Democrats nationwide), I'll focus on them. The Democrats have received on average 120,417 votes for the Senate, and 119,086 votes for the Presidency, both very close. This is compared to the Republicans getting 155,796 votes for the Senate and 183,135 for the Presidency.
But 2012, a fairly neutral election for Alaska, saw the Republicans dip down to 164,676 votes, below their average. This was just 12,909 votes more than what Mark Begich won in 2008, which was the most votes a Democrat got in the state since 2004. 12,909 votes is just 4.3% of the total votes cast in 2012.
TL;DR summary:
If I was head of the Democratic Party of Alaska, I would study closely how Mark Begich got out such a strong coalition in 2008. The answer isn't simply about Stevens' indictment - Begich was winning in polls as early as December 2007, well before the indictment in July 2008, and Stevens outperformed the polling (only one poll had him receiving a higher percentage of votes than he received). I would invest in some ground game to make up the 4.3% of votes that they could theoretically need to win in the state. If not for 2016, then do it for 2020 when there will be another senate race lining up with the presidential.
PS - I'm relatively new here, and I tried posting an image, but it didn't work for me. Mods, if anyone could help, that would be greatly appreciated. I'm just trying to back up my thoughts in this quirky, fun, political community.
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