Kerry's 2% finish in New Hampshire. - Democratic Underground

cosmicaug

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Thu Jan-29-04 06:40 PM
Original message

Kerry's 2% finish in New Hampshire.

When is getting 2% of the vote in the Primary not such a bad thing? When it happens in the opposition party's primary.

See http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/01/28/politics1335EST0631.DTL

Quoting AP story:
He didn't kiss babies, flip pancakes or endure the New England chill. Still, President Bush has won his first New Hampshire primary.

Bush received 85 percent of votes cast Tuesday in the GOP contest. In 2000, he lost the nation's leadoff primary to Sen. John McCain of Arizona by 18 percentage points.

Not that Bush didn't have competition this year. Nearly two dozen other people received votes, several of them Democrats seeking their party's nomination.

More than 4,600 voters wrote in the names of the major Democratic candidates. The top write-in candidate, with 2 percent of the GOP vote, was John Kerry, who won the Democratic primary.

Some of those votes came from independents who said they had forgotten to change their party affiliation back to "undeclared" after voting in the Republican presidential primary in 2000.

In New Hampshire, undeclared voters can cast their ballots in either party's primary. Once they do, their voter registrations are automatically changed to show membership in that party.

©2004 Associated Press

I think that's kind of interesting. Funny the "liberal media" didn't pick this up.

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bigtree

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Thu Jan-29-04 06:46 PM
Response to Original message

1. Good catch

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cosmicaug

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Thu Jan-29-04 06:51 PM
Response to Reply #1

2. Not my catch, actually.

Not my catch, actually. I saw it somewhere else. The official tally is at http://www.nh.gov/sos/presprim%202004/rpressum.htm

Bush first place. Kerry distant second place. Dean third and Clark fourth.

Apparently it's some artifact of how the primaries are done in New Hampshire. I still think it's kind of weird (and I think there's a message in there, somewhere).

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SadEagle

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Thu Jan-29-04 06:52 PM
Response to Original message

3. The 4600 number is interesting, the %% is not.

It's not like there was a competitive GOP race, so they Republicans just stayed home. Still, how small was Bush's margin of victory in NH? These are registered republicans, not independents!

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cosmicaug

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Thu Jan-29-04 07:11 PM
Response to Reply #3

4. I still find it interesting.

SadEagle wrote:
These are registered republicans, not independents!

The possible explanation I've read (I don't know if it's correct) is that these are probably undeclared voters who got switched to Republican affiliation by voting in the Republican primary previously and who forgot to switch back before this one came around (and thus retained the Republican registration --even though they should be more properly considered independents). Does anyone know if that's really the way it works in New Hampshire?

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sangh0

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Thu Jan-29-04 07:12 PM
Response to Original message

5. Obviously, this means

Kerry is unelectable!! :-)

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cosmicaug

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Thu Jan-29-04 07:24 PM
Response to Reply #5

6. Obviously, this means.

He appeals to republicans therefore he must be a republican. Is this considered a rule violation or is there enough sense of humor in the moderators to see it as something other than a rule violation? :silly:

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sangh0

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Thu Jan-29-04 07:25 PM
Response to Reply #6

7. How lucky do you feel?

If you want, I'm willing to hit the Alert button.

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cosmicaug

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Thu Jan-29-04 07:38 PM
Response to Reply #7

8. Don't do that.

Edited on Thu Jan-29-04 07:39 PM by cosmicaug

I didn't even think of it as I started writing it. It just occurred to me that it might be covered by the rules I just read as I was writing it (but it also should be pretty obvious I was just being silly). Not that I like all of the rules (I think some of them are rather silly and restrictive --but, then again, I'm obviously not the one running the show).

But if it would amuse you, go ahead and do it. Although maybe that, in itself, would be against the rules (not that I've checked or anything).

On Edit: Corrected usage problem.

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sangh0

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Thu Jan-29-04 07:45 PM
Response to Reply #8

9. I won't

I was just yanking your chain.

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bobbyboucher

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Thu Jan-29-04 08:03 PM
Response to Reply #7

11. You can say that again.

You can say that again.

You can say that again.

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elperromagico

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Thu Jan-29-04 08:00 PM
Response to Original message

10. I think a few of our Dem candidates received votes in the GOP primary.

Edited on Thu Jan-29-04 08:03 PM by elperromagico

http://www.nh.gov/sos/presprim%202004/rpressum.htm

Kerry received 3,009 votes, Dean received 1,888 votes, Clark received 1,467 votes, Lieberman received 941 votes, and Edwards received 916 votes. The rest received smaller votes. I think Kerry, in fact, pulled second place in the GOP primary.

Additionally, Bush received 257 write-in votes in the Dem primary, placing him ninth in the final ranking.

I'm inclined to think that it was just due to voters casting ballots in the wrong primary. It happens.

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cosmicaug

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Thu Jan-29-04 11:18 PM
Response to Reply #10

12. Most curious numbers.

elperromagico wrote:
I'm inclined to think that it was just due to voters casting ballots in the wrong primary. It happens.

I'm inclined to agree also, but the numbers you quote are still rather curious. everything else being equal, you'd expect many more "Democratic" Bush votes than "Republican" votes for Democrats (under the scenario of people going to the wrong primary) simply because there are fewer people showing up for the Republican Primary (since there's nothing to decide). The pattern, instead, is the opposite (well over 10 times as many votes for Kerry alone as for Bush).

Possibly it might be because the "Republicans" for Kerry feel they're making much more of a statement than the "Democrats" for Bush.

By the way, Rocco likes your username:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=690689#690743

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