Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Warning sign in Illinois

I think last night's Illinois primary results indicate some difficulties ahead in the state for Democrats that have nothing to do with who the winners and losers were.

Based on the current numbers 885,268 voters were cast in the Democratic primary for Senate compared to 736,137 on the Republican side. Those numbers are awfully close to each other for a state that's overwhelmingly Democratic.

For sake of comparison the last time there were competitive Senate primaries on both sides in Illinois, in 2004 when Barack Obama was nominated, there were nearly twice as many votes cast in the Democratic primary as the Republican one. 1,242,996 voted in the Democratic race to 661, 804 for the Republicans.

Last night's turnout is yet another data point on the enthusiasm gap, showing that Republicans are much more excited about this year's elections than Democrats, even in a deep blue state. We'll have more analysis on last night's results later today.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom, You left out perhaps the most striking point, there were 60,000 more GOP primary voters now, than in '08 presidential primary!

Unknown said...

I think it's fair to say Democrats are well on their way to losing 50+ House seats and maybe as many as 10 Senate seats.

And I'm as liberal as they come.

Jeffrey Meyer said...

Never vote for a democrat again.

Timothy said...

I'm glad you brought this up because I noticed this last night and commented on it over at Hot Air. I'm learning so much from your site and how to look at "things". Thanks for helping me grow and learn (even though I would never vote for a democrat...lol).

Unknown said...

"Never vote for a democrat again."

Well, this independent will never vote for a Republican again. They just lie to much about wanting smaller government and fiscal responsibility, they dropped those ideals 20 years ago. At least the Democrats don't want big government in our bedrooms, stopping stem cell research, or telling us we can't have abortions. Libertarian party is where it's at, the fiscal responsibility and small government ideas of Goldwater Republicans with a liberal social outlook that doesn't let religious right wing Republicans push their religious positions on the rest of us.

Anonymous said...

It would be great to see the "Land of Lincoln" return to the policies of Abraham Lincoln, who managed to be pro-liberty, pro-business and pro-labor - simply by insisting that people be treated equally under the law.

Jay said...

Ever notice that whenever the Democrats get a chance, they try to force our country into Socialism? Sad to say sometimes the Republicans have gone along with them.

I am best described as Libertarian, but given the choice, I will choose the party of Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, and Abraham Lincoln. They are each responsible for freeing millions of people.

The Democrats today are trying to enslave more through dependency.

 
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