As you can see from these charts from Greg Giroux above and below, the turnout in a special election on a Saturday in February of 2017 exceeded that of a general election in 2014. That fact alone is simply amazing. I am also interested in particular precinct results that show huge swings. For example, the 10th election district in the 27th RD (listed on both charts as Precinct 10-27) swung from Marino winning 57-43 in 2014 to 58-42 this year. The 4th election district in the 9th RD (04-09) swung from Marino 58% – Hall-Long 42% in 2014 to 50% Marino – 49% Hansen this time. Precinct 02-25 swung from 51-49 Marino in 2014 to 59-40 Hansen.
The people I spoke to mostly consider themselves “newly political”. If Dems adopt a message that keeps these fires burning, they can score big during the midterms.
Running thru the totals it’s hard not to notice some major stompage in some of the precincts, as noted if the Dems can keep this spirit alive the midterms begin to look good.
One caveat that I’ll add to the numbers above. Some EDs were combined for this election. Since they were in the same polling place and only had one issue to vote on, DoE just lumps them in together. This will make it impossible to tease out some of the data points.
People are (understandably) talking about the margin of victory, but for me the real win here is the turnout. 35% is amazing, and true and stunning achievement for a special election. It shows me that the Democratic side is really activated and that is what I think we need to carry forward. There’s going to be a lot of talk about money, mostly from the republicans, but what I really think really clinched this election and pushed the turnout as high as it was was the literally thousands of men and women, from all across the district, the state, and even the country, coming out to knock on doors and make phone-calls in support of Stephanie. It’s grassroots activism, not big money, that should be the big takeaway from this election.