Prop 14 Impact

California's Prop 14 is a "Top Two Primaries Act." This means that all parties participate in the primary, with only the top two vote getters in the primary advance to the general election. When the general election comes around the voters will have to vote for one of the major parties.

There are four "third parties" in California, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, Green, and American Independent. American Independent is affiliated with the Constitution Party nationally. So there are two parties on the right and two on the left. They aren't just on the right and left. The two on the right are considered to the right of the Republicans, while the two on the left are to the left of the Democrats. Assuming they vote in the general election again, these people will probably vote for the party on their side of the aisle.

This is significant, because third parties are very popular in California. Almost every time they have a candidate they'll get 5,000-15,000 votes. The chart below shows the margin of victory for the major parties, along with the number of votes the minor parties received.

The two parties on the right got 127,719 more votes than the two on the left. This vote proved decisive in the 11th. If the Republicans had only gotten a quarter of the American Independent vote they would've won. Overall, Republicans lost 2.3% more than Democrats. In the seven races where more than one party appeared on the ballot, the left wing parties had more votes overall. This shouldn't be surprising, however, since 5 of 7 of these contests were in left wing counties.

That was 2010, a Republican year. What about 2008, a Democratic year? Surely, the left wing parties did better.

Better than in 2010, but the right wing parties again took 1.1% more of the vote. The left wing parties even had the advantage of Cindy Sheehan. Unlike all other third party candidates she received a lot of publicity and spent money on her campaign. The 37 votes for Peace and Green in the 9th isn't a typo. There was no candidate on the ballot. Those are write-ins.

At first glance it doesn't look like this is a big deal. After all, they only changed the outcome of one race. That's true, but in 2012 many districts will be drawn competitive. So 11,000 votes could be the difference between a win and a loss. And that should favor the Republicans.