Hatch and the Minneapolis Vote
My co-hort, Charley Underwood claimed in his latest post that "Hatch ignored Ellison, Hatch lost." I agreed with his reasoning, because I didn't see much of a Hatch presence in Minneapolis aside from the Coordinated Campaign (but that's another discussion for another day). Furthermore, while the activists I know in Minneapolis wanted Hatch to win for the most part, weren't weren't excited about him as a candidate nor were many of them doing anything for him -- Not the way that people were excited about Amy Klobuchar or Keith Ellison.
Being a numbers junkie, I've analyzed the data. Surprisingly, Charley inclination is not born out by the numbers. Hatch outperformed Keith throughout Minneapolis except in Keith's home turf, Ward 5 up on Northside where Keith pipped him 77.51% to 76.19%. Overall, Hatch outperformed Keith by 5%, 69.73% to 64.77%.
What does bear out Charley's analysis is when I compared Mike's numbers to Amy's. Amy effing rocked in Minneapolis, outperforming Mike by 10%. She garnered 79.53% of the Minneapolis vote. That's nearly freakin' 80%. This is what happens in Minneapolis when a candidate doesn't have any baggage and excites us. Some of our beloved state legislators didn't even when by these margins! It's as if Amy ran unopposed in Minneapolis.
Observe the numbers:
So what do these numbers tell us?
First of all, I would like to bring up that this election cycle is a mid-term and is considered a base election. In other words, common discussion amongst pundits is that you need to mobilize your base. I believe that Hatch did a shitty job mobilizing the DFL base.
Consider this. Keith Ellison had some significant baggage: parking tickets, late taxes and he is African-American. If that wasn't enough to scare off white folks, he's Muslim on top of it which apparently scared the heck out of a certain percentage of the non-Muslim population in MN-05 -- recall Alan Fine's slime campaign at your own risk.
What Keith knew is that he could mobilize his fellow Progressives. And he did just that.
There was one poll of questionable accuracy released before the primary (the details were never released). It showed Keith leading with 26% followed by Mike Erlandson at 24% and Ember Reichgott Junge with 22%. In the primary, Mike and Ember's numbers were fairly close to the polling numbers. However, Keith came in with just under 20% more than this poll indicated. I attribute this to mobilizing the base who worked theirs asses off in the month and a half before the primary to ensure his victory.
Amy Klobuchar gave enough love to Minneapolis voters that she cleaned up with almost 80% of the vote. Now, she wasn't making an appearance in Minneapolis every week. However, she recognized that Saint Paul and Minneapolis were very important and gave us many occasions to meet her.
Furthermore, Amy made appearances all over Minnesota all summer long. What did Mike Hatch do? Sat on his campaign war chest. Here's a story I related to y'all back in August:
- Here's an anecdotal example from someone I know who was vacationing up north over the Independence Day weekend: He went to three separate parades up on the Iron Range on July 4th and Amy was marching in all three. Herself. And her tons of volunteers. I haven't seen hide nor hair of Mike. I have seen alot of Amy.
Amy's extra effort was the difference for her. She knew she needed to build a big lead against Make-over Mark. She and her team knew she needed to hit first with mailings which she did. She and her team knew she needed to hit first with TV ads and she did. She got two on TV before Make-over got his act together. Make-over never recovered.
Hatch played right into what the Republicans are best at, last minute slime attacks, exploitation of gaffes and ... well ... anything at all they can exploit to increase a candidates negative ratings. This is the good ol' DFL strategy that has lost every Governor's race since Rudy Perpich last one. We progressives know how to beat Republicans. We were taught by Paul Wellstone.
Does anybody in the DFL get it yet?
Dana Sluyter does.
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Don't forget Hutchinson's votes
I'm just now starting to map at the county level, so it'll be a while before I can trot out the next wave of results maps - my intention is to put them on the 25 mb website that Comcast will give me when I switch over from Road Runner but I have to grind them out first.
What I do notice, however, without getting into the fascinating blow-by-blow is that there were <37,000 Hutchinson votes in Hennepin County alone.
Open questions: How do the Amy/Hatch/Ritchie distributions compare across suburban municipalities/Minnesota House Districts/Minneapolis Wards?
I'm in cartographic hog heaven, but I'm also still dragging my derrier around - I HAVE done a nice precinct-level outcome map for the IRV folks, however, and hopefully some versions of that will show up on their website and at the Van Dusen on Tuesday evening at 5:30.
I was irritated by the hardball practices of the union guys at the state convention and noticed that they were nowhere to be found during our street-level antics in Minneapolis.
Take your pick: complacency, aversion to progressives, resentment at the Ellison endorsement coup, tunnel vision in the coordinated campaign staff, having Ellison enthusiasm suck the wind out of the Senate District organizations, having Senate District leadership inept at or indifferent to long-term capacity-building, having to respect the partisan/non-profit wall between the very vigorous and successful IRV initiative and the sometimes lackluster SD organizational presence, having individual legislative campaign committees driving the process while the central organizations were largely empty shells - good leadership but no treasury assets and few middle-level activists not already committed elsewhere - we live and learn.
I was personally chagrined that Becky Lourie was shunted aside. Becky doorknocked with Karen Clark and Linda Berglin in SD 61. Hatch was a distant name, signage and mailers, anybody but Pawlenty. Ritchie and Ellison worked the local networks with house parties and an occasional grander event. No one from the Hatch campaign ever said "What can we do to help?" in my hearing.
It'll be interesting to compare John Benson's (43B), Terri Bonoff's (SD 43), Maria Ruud's (42A), Carol Bomben's (SD 42!), Linda Slocum's (63B), Lee Carlson's (32B - right under Stanek's nose!) successes and the results achieved by our three friends who swept successfully through Brooklyn Park ... to the comparable outcomes between Hatch and his two major opponents on thematic maps at the precinct level across the county. And I will. In public and online, no less. I've no reason to trust the upper reaches of the DFL organization if past is prologue.
I couldn't talk the state DFL into investing in Maptitude at the state level, so I can't dissect the outcomes in CDs 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8. That, my friends, is a d****ed shame. Such GIS assets are a vital part of successful campaign planning and I will be very pointed in renewing my attempt to drag the old guard and educate the new guard in the niceties of target marketing before we are very far into the 2006-2007 holiday drill. We don't need having Norm Coleman for SIX more years!
Fred
I don't think racism was the issue for Ellison
In fact the efforts to use racial appeals backfired. I do think the tax and parking ticket issues hurt him with all voters - that wasn't a white/black thing.
All Hatch's campaign did was ask for money so they could run TV ads. Opinion leaders want the retail politics - and opinion leaders are the people who talk to their friends about votes.
Hatch also specificly alienated part of the DFL base. Gay voters are a key part of the DFL base in Minneapolis - and Hatch failed to get Stonewall DFL endorsement. (He had fence mending to do to get that endorsement - but he could have gotten the endorsement if he'd been willing to do it.)
Hatch also played the rural vs metro card. This hurt him with metro voters.
The last minute slime attacks would not have worked if there wasn't truth to some of them - specifically Hatch's problematic angry man personality.
The Base?
First, according to Wellstone Action, a solid field organization can earn a candidate between 2-3% in a close race. There is no way field epeartion can explain a 10% difference between Hatch and A Klo.
Second, Minneapolis is a very DFL town, but there is no way you can appeal to 'the base' to explain the difference between Hatch's 69% and A Klo's 79%. Neither candidate could get numbers that large without getting ALL of the DFL base vote (call it 50 - 60%). A Klo did better with Independents and Republicans.
Here is a much simplier explanation for why A Klo did better. Her opposition to the Iraq War was more popular and salient in a Federal race. Take Iraq out of the picture and A Klo probably gets the same numbers in Mpls. as Hatch.
Charlie and numbers
"Surprisingly, Charley inclination is not born out by the numbers."
There is no surpise there. Charlie, love him or love him less, is led by emotion not objectevity.