The Sweep: Who Foots the Primary Bill?

Plus: Some mayoral tea leaves, the GOP's new low-propensity base, and the public's growing conviction that Biden is a liberal's liberal.

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In Case You’re Hungry: This is a great explainer of ranked choice voting, using … breakfast. As the geniuses at the Wall Street Journal put it, “We created a sample ranked-choice election based on the New York City primary ballot. But instead of choosing between mayoral candidates, we are asking you to rank your favorite bagel orders.” Enjoy! 

A Surprise GOP Win on the Border: Republicans may not have much hope in the New York City Mayor’s race this year, but two surprise mayoral elections in Texas may be worth some attention from both sides of the aisle. At the southern tip of Texas sits McAllen. It has a population of only 140,000—small but mighty—and is 85 percent Hispanic. The county voted for Biden by 17 percentage points in 2020 and Hillary Clinton by 40 points in 2016. This weekend, former chair of the local Republican Party and city commissioner Javier Villalobos won the runoff election for mayor. Democrats have controlled the city since at least 1997 by my count, so this is a big deal. Republicans are quick to point to Democrats’ continued slide with Hispanic voters even post-Trump as evidence for their “America First” agenda and the unfolding border crisis as a sign of trouble for Democrats in 2022. The GOP also held onto the mayor’s seat in Fort Worth. After Biden won the county last fall—the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has won it in decades—Democrats yet again thought this might be the tide that turned Texas blue. 

On the one hand, this is clearly bad news for Texas Democrats. They had two open seats in places Biden won. They lost both. Hard to spin that. But does it prove that Republicans are on the precipice of a landslide election in the midterms and Hispanic voters have turned on the Democratic Party for good and that the border is more of a political disaster than anyone appreciates? Probably not. Villalobos won in McAllen by 206 votes out of 9,282 cast. Republicans may win big in 2022, but I’m not willing to place a lot of forecasting weight on 9,000 people who turned out for a Saturday mayor’s runoff race just yet.

And There’s The Rub: This piece from the Wall Street Journal was about the best summary of 2020 and what I’ve been trying to say about the GOP electorate shift to date.

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  1. MEGinsberg

    I don't understand the argument against the Virginia GOP's method of nomination. On the one hand, you say state primaries are a terrible mistake, on the other hand, you denigrate the Virginia GOP's method of nomination as "Rube Goldberg-esque". We avoided the primaries you say are a "terrible mistake" and only had an unassembled convention because a traditional convention was impractical in a pandemic. Also, you say without basis that the Virginia GOP "stumbled into" nominating the most electable candidate, but you don't consider the possibility that the convention--and the ranked choice voting it used--enabled that result. I would suggest that the method of nomination selected ensured the best possible ticket with the widest possible support, much better than a primary would have in the wide field of GOP candidates.

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      ~sg

      I thought Chris was castigating how Virginia pays for party primary contests, more so than criticizing the process and outcomes. Although there's something to be said for poking the process and outcomes, which he did with both precision and humor. I lived in Virginia for about 20 years, and I never questioned the tax-payer paid party contests; I did, however, question the outcomes almost every time.

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  2. Safety Cone

    "There’s no reason {ANY political party} should expect taxpayers to subsidize their nominating process and mobilize the whole electoral apparatus..." which serves to provide a sheep's skin of respectability to a Mandarin class's stranglehold on the levers of government and power.

    Huzzah!!! -

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  3. Greyjoy

    “[W]ill those low-propensity voters that the GOP has built its new house upon show up to vote in a midterm election when Trump isn’t on the ballot?” I predict that this low-propensity group of voters will prove to be higher propensity than large portions of the Biden coalition when Trump isn’t on the ballot. That will be the case at least during the 2022 midterms. As a member of that coalition, I can report that we’re exhausted and, moreover, won’t view the stakes in 2022 as particularly high and will even “vote” for gridlock during Biden’s last two years by not turning out.

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    David Eggleston

    I stopped in my 60+% Democratic precinct at lunchtime to vote in the Republican House of Delegates race. There was one other voter leaving as I signed in. Heck, the precinct used to be in Sen. McClellan’s old House district. I’d expected someone to be there working the polls for her, but nary a sign. T-Mac’s presumptive coronation killed Democratic turnout.

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  5. GMarkC

    Chris, wrong. The sad debacle that passed itself off as the GOP “convention” shows why state-funded party primaries should be mandatory in every state in order to reduce the likelihood that a select few insiders have a major if not always determinative effect on the outcome.

    As a Georgian, I admittedly did not have a front row seat, but I have heard nothing about the GOP convention’s selection of any nominees other than Governor - were those races fairly publicized, advertised, even existent - let alone open to voters in the own counties? How far on average did Republicans have to drive to cast a vote for their state legislator - or would they have had to if they wanted to vote? As a strong partisan insider, I can understand why you’d prefer not to fund Democratic voting and why you’re ok with insiders running the GOP (s)election.

    Again, the GOP showed its preference for making voting harder with the result (intended or not) that they exclude the poorer, older, less mobile members of the electorate. I’m beginning to expect that Republican disregard may come back to bite ‘em in November.

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  6. Shea Simmons

    The ranked-choice voting article on WSJ was very interesting, and without an in depth knowledge of the possible consequences of this method, I would say it seems to be an excellent idea. I will definitely look more into the pros and cons of this method.

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    rlritt

    "Probably not. Villalobos won in McAllen by 206 votes out of 9,282 cast."

    It's an Hispanic town, and they voted for an Hispanic candidate by 200 votes. Is that necessarily a win?

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      JohnF

      I wonder how much difference party affiliation actually makes in a small town election. This recent election was actually a runoff between the top two candidates out of five who initially ran. Both had been active in civic politics, but it doesn't appear that the runner up was "the Democratic candidate".
      This may be better defined as "the winning candidate is a Republican" rather then "the Republican candidate won".

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    2. GMarkC

      “ It's an Hispanic town, and they voted for an Hispanic candidate by 200 votes.” You forgot the word “only”.

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        rlritt

        You're right.

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    Phil H

    re: primaries: I absolutely agree with doing away with them, both because they are state subsidies to private party nominating processes that the parties should finance themselves; and just because primaries damage party integrity.

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    Phil H

    I have to think that Sarah and Chris devote so much space to the Commonwealth of Virginia, not because it's such a political bellweather, but because it's only 1 of 2 states that elect their governors this year, and the other state -- New Jersey -- is expected to go Democratic as it usually does (Chris Christie notwithstanding). So there's not much else to talk about.

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    Angie

    Cool, as always

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