Apr.30

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Republicans Are Giddy about Narrow Democratic Win in Virginia

Some Republicans are pointing to the narrow 3-point win for the redistricting measure in Virginia, compared to the blowout 15-point win for Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) last year, and thinking that help is on the way. All wrong, even though the Virginia Supreme Court has blocked certification until it has a chance to consider the case. On Monday, the Court heard oral arguments. Now the justices have to cogitate and make a ruling. They know it is very important so they want to issue a solid ruling, whichever way it goes. And remember, the case is not about whether gerrymandering is a good idea or not, but about whether the state legislature violated the rules in the state Constitution doing this.

The reasons the Republicans are wrong are threefold:

• "Yes" ≠ Democrat: Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini, who wrote the piece linked to at the start of this item, is making the false assumption that Virginians voted based on partisanship. In other words, Democrats voted "yes" and Republicans voted "no," and see, only a few more Democrats than Republicans.
  
  That's unlikely to be true because Democrats tend to be "good government" types and don't like gerrymandering. To be consistent (and morally upright), many Democrats voted "no" even though it hurt their party because they consider the principle of "gerrymandering is bad" to be more important than four House seats. Ruffini, a Republican, simply cannot conceive of a voter who would not go to the mattress, even if only one House seat was in play. His mental model comes from working with Republicans for years and he has probably never met one who said: "That is immoral so I won't do it, even though I could get some partisan advantage by doing it" and he assumes Democrats think the same way. Not all of them do.
  
  
• Turnout in November Will Save Us: Ruffini is assuming the Democrats' repeated blowout victories in special elections this year and last are due to Republicans being unmotivated in weird special elections, but come November with Congress at stake, they will show up in droves.
  
  Turns out that the assumption Republicans stayed home is false. An analysis of the turnout data for Democratic precincts and Republican precincts show the Democratic victories are not due (entirely) to normal Democratic turnout and weak Republican turnout. Specifically, comparing the early voting in last year's gubernatorial election in Virginia with the referendum, 7 points of the 12-point swing were due to vote switching and 5 points were due to turnout. In other words, persuasion, not motivation, is doing the heavy lifting.
  
  
• A Turnout Problem Is Comforting: A third problem is that if the Republicans' problem were just lazy voters, the solution is obvious: scream to the rooftops about protecting girls sports and they will all show up. Problem solved. If, however, the problem is that independents, and even some Republicans, hate Donald Trump, there is no easy fix. It is more comforting for Republicans to believe the lie that they can fix the problem with money and more ads. If the real problem is that the voters don't like what they are selling, money won't solve that problem.

In short, the close margin in the redistricting measure is not a good indicator of what November will hold. Actual elections are a better indicator. (V)