Canary in the Coalmine, part 2: Minnesota House special election analysis
We wrote twice leading up a special election held this week in southeastern Minnesota about how the results might indicate the current mood of the Minnesota electorate as a whole. While the seat did remain in Republican control, the victory gap narrowed from an average of 28 points to six points as compared to the preceding three elections. An excellent analysis of the election results begins as follows:
GOP Holds on to MN 28B House Seat; But What Does It Mean?The rest is here. (LP)
Republican Steve Drazkowski defeated DFL candidate Linda Pfeilsticker 52.9 to 46.9 percent in a special election in House District 28B to replace former Rep. Steve Sviggum on Tuesday.
While Ron Carey, the state Republican Party Chairman characterized Drazkowski's win as signaling “growing Republican momentum as we head into 2008,” the GOP should be cautious to read too much into this race. District 28B has voted overwhelmingly for Republican candidates in recent years.
First, Steve Sviggum won the district by an average of 28 points after redistricting in the 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections. Drazkowski – who ran for the state Senate District 28 just last fall – only won by 6 points in Tuesday's election. Moreover, Drazkowski actually carried 28B in his state Senate run (by a 50-49 margin); as such he was the clear favorite to win the race.
Secondly, Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty carried the district in both 2002 and 2006. In 2002, DFL-er Roger Moe (20.8 percent) only received only about half the votes as Pawlenty (40.7 percent), while Independence Party nominee Tim Penny received 36.7 percent. In 2006, Pawlenty beat DFL nominee Mike Hatch by 11 points – 51.8 to 40.7 percent, 10 points higher than the Governor’s 1-point statewide victory margin.
Labels: Drazkowski, Pfeilsticker
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2 Comments:
Spin ... Spin ... Spin.
First off, there is no winner ... just losers ... roughly the 15, 644 registered voters who did not like either of the choices ... so both parties failed.
28B may not be the easiest District to decipher as it includes part of Walz in the First(Wabasha) and part of Kline in the Second (Goodhue County).
For the DFL, they failed to get the job done.
Walz(D) won the District 7,191 versus 6,359. In the State Senate seat, Murphy(D) prevailed with 17,511 versus Drazkowski's 14,627. There was every reason to think that the DFL should have prevailed. Admittedly, the Goodhue County portion was won by Kline but Rawley did get 7,619 votes ... so there should have been plenty of potential voters to get to the polls. On paper, they offered a young candidate with good credentials and an Ag background. She got 3,333 votes.
For the IR, they should be concerned. Yes, they retained the seat, but their candidate had some name recognition from his previous Senate run just the past November. Heck, he got 14,627 votes for the Senate but only 3,762 (for the House District). That's not a drop-off, that's falling off the cliff ... especially since Sviggum would have wanted the seat to stay in the IR column.
Admittedly, Special Elections do not get the voter turnout that a regular election gets, but that is really pathetic to have that many voters not participate. Sviggum got 12,984 votes in the Presidential election year and then it fell down to 9,677 in 2006. So, Drazkowski got roughly 1/3 of the votes that Sviggum got.
Now, compare that to Pfeilsticker who got over half of the 6,214 DFL votes for Sviggum's competitor. So the DFL was still appealing to the independents.
Still considering the enthusiasm for Walz and the anger of the I-35 bridge, I would have thought that the DFL would have won. I will call it a loss for the IR and the DFL ... but more so for the 15,644 who didn't bother to participate.
I wonder if this opinion would have been written differently had Pfielsticker would have won?
I am guessing it would have read how smart the 28B voters were to choose a solid candidate whose track record as a community activist blah blah blah.
VV tried - in vain - to paint this election in rural southeastern Minnesota as evidence of a possible trend around the state. But, it was just a run-of-the-mill special election at the same time the fields need to be tended and the families getting ready for the State Fair. If this election would have been held in November, you might have a different voter turn out and a different result.
if Drazkowski does well, they'll have a chance to confirm him in 2008. If he doesn't do well, they can just as easily turn him out. He'll serve in one session to prove or disprove himself, but the sky is hardly falling.
To claim who the winners and losers are is a silly exercise. And I'm guessing you're just mad because your candidate didn't win.
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