On November 17, California held the first round in an election to fill the vacant 72nd Assembly seat. The results: Chris Norby, Republican, 37.23%; John MacMurray, Democratic, 27.05%; Linda Ackerman, Republican, 19.67%; Richard Faher, Republican, 13.22%; Jane Rands, Green, 2.83%.
Although the Green Party member’s showing, 2.83%, is not particularly good for a general election, it is very good for the first round in any blanket primary. California uses blanket primary rules for all its partisan special elections, which means that the final round includes the top vote-getter from each party. Normally, in the first round, minor parties in this type of election do very badly. That is because the great majority of voters are more interested in helping determine which major party member will advance to the run-off.
For example, in the September 2009 special election for U.S. House in California’s 10th district, the Green Party member got .51%; the American Independent Party member got .29%; the Peace & Freedom Party member got .25%. But, in the final round in that U.S. House election, the Green got 1.83%; Peace & Freedom got 1.34%; and American Independent got 1.15%. In other words, the minor party vote typically increases four-fold between the first round and the run-off. Thus, it seems somewhat likely that in the January 2010 run-off in the 72nd Assembly district, the Green Party candidate, Jane Rands, will get 10% or more.
So there was high Republican turnout because there was a contested Republican primary. And a low Democratic turnout because their primary wasn’t contested.
Is McMurray the incumbent, by any chance? Hmm — let’s see . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_72nd_State_Assembly_district
Nope — but he’s the two-time D challenger to the now-“scandalized” and resigned R incumbent Michael Duvall. And he came within 10% of Duvall in 2008, after losing by twice as much in 2006. So McMurray was almost as presumptively the D nominee as if he had been an incumbent.
Almost by definition, a special election has no incumbent.
True . . . I was just streaming my consciousness as I tried to figure out why there were 3 Rs in the race but only 1 D.
It’s a heavy Republican district and because there was no incumbent each of the Republicans were somewhat hopeful.