A story of numbers

S.J. CAHN

As tempting as it still is to dissect last week’s election results,

I’ll take my punishment for being on vacation and refrain from trying

to figure out how Chuck DeVore scored such an unexpectedly large

victory, why Bob Dornan did so poorly, and how, in the Democratic

presidential primary, Carol Moseley Braun topped Dick Gephardt, 1,315

to 1,231 in Orange County.

Instead, the view will be forward and the question: Are the

winners of the Republican primaries the de facto victors in November?

Unless there is something truly unforeseen, the answer certainly

seems to be “yes.” The simplest reason why is that, not surprisingly,

there are just too many Republican voters for another party to

overcome. Past votes show by just how much.

In this year’s Republican primary for the 35th State Senate

District seat now held by the termed-out Ross Johnson, Assemblyman

John Campbell won with 65,360 votes. He was followed by Assemblyman

Ken Maddox, who had 32,417, and Dana Point’s Joe Snyder, who had

10,033. That’s a total of 107,810 GOP votes.

In the uncontested Democratic primary, Rita Siebert garnered

50,135 votes, less than half that number.

Now, while it’s possible there might be some Democrats who didn’t

bother voting in the battle-free race, the Democratic presidential

contest between Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards should have brought

voters to the polls. I doubt there are many Democratic voters lurking

in the shadows, in other words.

The total number of voters is far above the amount who voted in

the last general election in 2002--making a sudden surge even less

likely. There just aren’t that many voters unaccounted for out there.

In this primary, adding in the 955 votes for Libertarian Timothy

Johnson, there were 158,900 votes cast. In 2002 (admittedly a

nonpresidential year), 110,544 votes were cast in the 35th State

Senate District general election.

If the comparison isn’t satisfying, the 2000 votes offer similar

evidence that the numbers won’t widely fluctuate in Democrats’ favor.

In the March primary of that year, all uncontested, 137,871 people

voted for the Republican Johnson. Democrat Steve Ray got 64,765.

About 19,000 votes were cast for other candidates.

Come November, Johnson added 51,652 votes for a total of 189,523.

Ray added 38,935 votes for his total of 103,700. More than 22,000

people voted for other candidates. There simply is no precedent for

the kind of upturn Siebert would need to win.

Numbers in the 70th Assembly District tell a different story, but

one with the same ending.

Chuck DeVore took the primary with 24,616 votes out of 53,033

cast. Democrat Carl Mariz received 25,602 in his uncontested race.

Libertarian Mark Baldwin, for those keeping track, had 440 votes.

The 2002 primary included three candidates, all running unopposed.

Incumbent John Campbell got a similar number to this year’s total,

53,456. Democrat John Kane received slightly less than Mariz, with

22,266, and Libertarian Paul Studier got 500. Their numbers all rose

in the general election: Campbell received 73,880, Kane 33,449 and

Studier 3,215.

In the 2000 primary, again, all uncontested, Campbell garnered

71,744 votes. Democrat Merritt McKeon received 33,959. Nearly 9,000

votes were cast for other candidates.

In the general election, Campbell’s number rose 24,401 to 96,145.

McKeon’s jumped to 54,349, a rise of 20,390. About 11,000 voters

chose other candidates.

Now, there might seem to be a little hope for non-Republicans in

these numbers. After all, McKeon’s general election total just tops

the total cast last week in the Republican contest.

The difference, of course, is that there was no Republican primary

battle this year. Those 71,744 voters who chose Campbell in March

2000 were also picking between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Sen.

John McCain, so they had plenty of reason to come out to the polls.

(That also explains why Johnson, running uncontested in 2000, had

more votes than the three Republicans combined this year.)

This fall, in what is shaping up to be a tight presidential race,

the 96,000 who voted in November 2000 should show up again, eclipsing

the number of Democrats and keeping the Republican hold on Orange

County’s state representation solid.

OK, one final word on the primary. The final round of mailers

contained the winner for best piece of political literature. It was

Don Wagner’s Punch & Judy Show take-off on his opponents, Cristi

Cristich and eventual winner DeVore. It didn’t win Wagner the race,

but he gets definite style points for the effort.

* S.J. CAHN is the managing editor. He may be reached at (949)

574-4233 or by e-mail at [email protected].