California voters

[kan...@aol.com]

In California, which I take more interest in than the average Mo/Kan citizen, had an interesting election situation. 

There was only one item on the ballot, prop 50. No PERSON was on the ballot. And this was an off-off election year. So what's the big deal? The turnout was about 2/3 of the turnout in the last two Presidential elections.

That's a phenomenal turnout in this situation. Usually <50% turnout in such cases. 

The implication is that people are paying attention to politics.

I hope that this  prevails nationwide. The more informed people are with FACTS, the more they will vote for Democrats. Today's results suggest that people all over are engaged and informed. This hints at more than a  pendulum swing, such as what happen frequently in off years. 

Too early to tell; but there's a lot less to mourn over than yesterday. 

[GMoney]

A larger turnout has ALWAYS favored democrats...which I've always found interesting. Not sure what to make of it. One could say it's because they have the better ideas...a cynic might suggest it just means a lot more uneducated people casting votes. 

I know at my polling place yesterday one of the poll workers commented that it was the most busy she's ever seen that particular polling place during a non election year midterm. 

[kan...@aol.com]

G, don't overthink it. The reason that turnout favors Dems is because there's a LOT more of them. Simple as that. That's why Republicans do all they can to tilt the field in their favor. All the gerrymandering going on now, all the voter suppression actions, even the Electoral College- all help the minority party gain/retain power. 

Both parties gerrymander; in fact SCOTUS says it's LEGAL. I can't believe that was a good decision. But the current gerrymandering is so venal because it's happening in the middle of an election cycle. NO state has a reason to gerrymander now other than to steal seats in the House. 

California actually led the movement for non-partisan districting; but they had to backtrack because of Texas/Trump. In a better world, Texas would have moved toward non-partisan districting boards. But in Trump world that can't happen. 

So now the only choice is to "fight fire with fire". Maybe down the road states will move the other way. But with entrenched racism still rampant in the South, I don't see that happening any time soon. 

[B Keg]

I think it would be interesting to find out how much emotional engagement drives voter turnout. Does emotional engagement or pragmatism and logic drive political engagemen? Which one favors which party on which issues. 

Be nice, even when you don't want to!

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[kan...@aol.com]

Most likely emotion plays a big role for a lot of voters from all parts of the political spectrum. Certainly logic can't mean a lot for Trump voters. (s). 

Probably depends what topic dominates the conversation. When it's guns/abortion, emotion predominates Immigration? Probably a combination of emotion and reason. Right now there is plenty of emotion to go around.  People are really upset by a lot of things, mostly relating to the economy. 

If logic predominated we wouldn't have to listen to emotional speeches with cheering crowds. You don't hear that at a physics convention. Just polite applause and head nodding. 

But whatever,, California turned out in surprisingly large numbers not usually seen in off year elections with no living candidates. That was the point of the post.