Big Blue Drip: California Republicans are turning out early and big

Big Blue Drip: California Republicans are turning out early and big

Midnight blue California is often cited as an indicator of national trends.

If this is still the case, then the big blue wave predicted by some pollsters and progressive pundits will become a big blue drip. Early voting in the Golden State is trending bright red.

Election Day is around the corner and Californians have been voting for three weeks. Given the data on who has voted so far, it does not point to a big surge for Democrats.

There are scores of first time candidates running for office but actual voter turnout in California so far has been average for a midterm election.

KPIX 5 talked to an expert who says, this trend is bad news for Democrats.

“What we’re seeing in the early returns though, is that the early returns are largely coming from those older, whiter, homeowners, more Republicans,” said Paul Mitchell, Vice-President of Political Data, Inc. “And young voters are not returning their ballots at the same rate.”

The response from Republicans may prevent the Democrat Party takeover of the House of Representatives, complete with Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

With the midterm elections just days away, there’s little indication that California is seeing a “blue wave” of Democratic votes, at least in the early returns of vote-by-mail ballots — and in some key races that will help determine control of the House, Republican voter response has been strong.

There are still a lot more ballots to come in, cautioned Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., which supplies voter information to a variety of political campaigns. But so far, according to a mail ballot tracker he runs, Republican votes are keeping pace with the number of Democratic ballots.

“Looking at the comparable numbers, the statewide mail ballot returns at this point are running about 40 percent higher than the primary, 1.7 million to 1.2 million,” he said.

Interest is definitely high in the Republican-held congressional districts that Democrats are looking to flip in their quest to gain the 23 seats they need to take back control of the House.

The San Francisco Chronicle political writers John Wildermuth and Joe Garofoli believe the Democrats may only flip two of the 23 House seats held by Republicans in California.

The data is consistent with what is occurring in other states as well.

Get-out-the-vote efforts now assume special importance. Careful planning, precise targeting, months of preparation, and vast amounts of volunteer hours now either pay off in early and absentee voting as well as Election Day turnout, or they don’t and campaigns sink. But initial reports are good for Republicans. Last week NBC News found “GOP-affiliated voters have surpassed Democratic-affiliated ones in early voting in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Texas”—all of which have key races for Senate, governor or both.

Nevada is the only state with a crucial Senate race in which NBC reported a Democratic advantage in early voting. That’s accurate but incomplete. As of Tuesday night, Nevada’s early-voting results show an over 3-percentage-point swing toward the Republicans from the last election’s early voting. Since Democrats carried the state by 2.4 points in 2016, the GOP looks to be in the hunt for the state’s Senate and gubernatorial races.

Any report, opinion, assertion, or prognostication that indicates the Democrats are going to win big next Tuesday will be nuclear-grade gas-lighting.

I am going to go out on a limb, head to the edge of a branch, and grab a leaf to predict that when the actual votes are tallied Nov. 6th, the Republicans are going to make significant gains across the country. And while I am skeptical that the GOP will take the California governor’s race, I believe that the Democrats won’t be flipping as many of the state’s congressional seats as initially projected.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.