Election 2010

What if Prop 14 were already the law?

4 Comments

Prop 14 passed, alas.  While it is difficult to judge exactly how things would have turned out in a truly open primary, if we combine the votes in the current semi-closed primaries, our general election run-offs would be Democrat vs Republican in every case.

But, we came very close to that not being true.  Kamala Harris, the Democratic winner in a wide-open primary, received 553,771 votes.  The Republican runner-up received 532.623.  Had an open primary had similar results, we were within 32,000 votes of having two Republicans running-off for state Attorney General.  

Of course, in a more open primary, one wonders if Kamala Harris would have won.  As Nate Silver points out http://www.fivethirtyeight.com… these open primaries tend to result in more centrist winners.  Chris Kelly might have pulled more cross-over or Independent votes.  

Then again, would we have seen so many candidates from one party?  As a pure thought experiment, if one party has a 60-40 majority, and four equally popular candidates who split the vote, and the other party has two candidates who split the vote, the two minority party candidates are the two in the runoff.  Would not the majority party encourage two or more of their candidates to stand down?

The other losers are the current third parties.  Here’s a list of candidates you will see on your November ballots who would not be there if Prop 14 had already been the law:

Governor:  Chelene Nightingale, Laura Wells, Dale F. Ogden, and Carlos Alvarez.

Lt. Governor:  Jim King, James Castillo, Pamela Brown, and CT Weber

Secretary of State:  Merton D. Short, Ann Menasche, Christina Tobin, and Marylou Cabral

Controller:  Lawrence G. Beliz, Ross D. Frankel, Andrew “Andy” Favor, and Karen Martinez

Treasurer:  Robert Lauten, Charles “Kit” Crittenden, Edward M. Teyssier, and Debra L. Reiger.

Attorney General: Diane Beall Templin, Peter Allen, Timothy J. Hannan, and Robert J. Evans.

Insurance Commissioner:  Clay Pedersen, William Balderston, Richard S. Bronstein, and Dina Josephine Padilla.

4 thoughts on “What if Prop 14 were already the law?”

  1. here’s what i found:

    District 9 would have sent Roger Dickinson and Kevin McCarty, two Democrats, to the general

    District 20 would have sent 2 Democrats Bob Wieckowski and Garrett Yee, to the general

    District 25, which only had Republicans running anyways, would have sent 2, Kristin Olsen and Bill Conrad, to the general

    District 28 would have sent 2 Democrats, Luis Alego and Janet Barnes, to the general

    District 47 would have sent 2 Democrats, Holly Mitchell and Reggie Jones-Sawyer, to the general

    District 50 would have sent 2 Democrats, Ricardo Lara and Carmen Avalos, to the general

    District 70 came within 97 votes of sending 2 Republicans to the general

    In none of these races would a seat have likely changed partisan hands. The effect would have been to elect more moderate-to-conservative Democrats with GOP votes in 5 races, and more moderate-to-liberal Republicans in 2 races, with the attending expenses to the respective parties in terms of general election resources.

    the combination of prop 14 and the “nonpartisan” redistricting process could really change the playing field in some unpredictable ways.

  2. On election night the media focused almost entirely on the primary victories of Whitman and Fiorina, even though they badly trailed Brown and Boxer in actual votes.  Brown received 34% more votes than Whitman; Boxer had almost 50% more votes than Fiorina.  If this had been a combined primary (and the vote had been the same), the narrative would have been different.  Brown and Boxer would have obviously been the winners of the evening, by far, with Whitman and Fiorina trailing far behind, but making it into the runoff.

    If Democrats can maintain a registration and turnout advantage, and limit the number of serious candidates they field in the primary, Prop 14 may turn around and bite the Republicans in the butt, by taking away the publicity spotlight of winning a Republican primary, and focusing more attention on the winners of the total vote.  Watching Fiorina explain why she got half a million fewer votes than Boxer would be significantly different from watching Fiorina crow about winning the Republican primary.

  3. and we ended up with Aceves running against Torlakson.  Not a bad choice.

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