California VBM Returns Tell Us What?

I haven't posted in a while. I've largely abandoned blogging because I haven't had the time. I have some insight you won't read anywhere else. So read on. We all want to know to be able to read the tea leaves and know what the election results are going to be in advance. California allows us to do a little bit of reading, because a lot of votes are VBM. When they arrive at a county registrar, the counties transmit that a voter has voted to the state. Political Data gets all that information and lists the party affiliation of the voters by congressional district. I've compiled their information by congressional district here.

The linked chart gives you the data for the last four elections, the 2018 primary, 2016 general election, 2016 primary, and 2014 general election. The first column is difference in VBM returns between the parties. The second column is the final vote margin, for all votes, not just VBMs. The third column is the difference. If the number is positive it's for the Democrats and negative for Republicans. In CA-3 Democratic ballots were returned +3, 44% of them were Democratic and 41% Republican, and the Democrat won by 5 points.

There isn't a one to one correlation between the two numbers and it isn't constant. But the ranges have been pretty steady. CA-7 has usually had a very close relationship. Raul Ruiz has greatly outproduced the VBM returns in CA-36.

I make an assumption that Democrats vote for the Democrat and Republicans vote for the Republican. If the difference between VBM ballots and the final result don't match, then one of two things happened. The election day ballots were a bit different than the VBM ballots and NPP voters favored one candidate. Look at CA-39. In the 2014 general, 2016 primary, and 2016 general Ed Royce outperformed VBM returns. NPP voters likely favored him. That wasn't the case in the 2018 primary. Democrats did 3.6% better than ballot returns.

That leads to my next assumption. Let's look at CA-49. In 2014, Darrell Issa did 2.4% better than the VBMs. In the three subsequent elections Democrats did 2.7% better, 7.4% better, and 4.0% better. I'm assuming that the results will be between the top and bottom numbers. The past numbers are probably indicative of the future and we have no reason to think either party will do better. The 2016 primary numbers are ones I'd emphasize since they are most indicative of the environment we're in. The numbers of the 2016 primary and general elections are closest to each other in many districts.

So Gil Cisneros is unlikely to win the election if the VBMs are more Republican than R+3.6. Democrats really outperformed the VBM margin in CA-45, so Mimi Walters is in serious trouble if the returns are less than R+9.6.

Are my assumptions faulty? Are yours better? Great. The data is the data. Read the data and use your assumptions.

The numbers on the right tell us the return rate so far. In CA-3, Democrats have returned 3.2% of their VBM ballots, Republicans have returned 4.0% of theirs and NPP voters have returned 2.2%. Some districts have very low return rates listed. This may not be because people haven't returned their ballots but because all the counties in the district haven't reported or have reported little. These district results should be ignored until there's more data.

One of the most notable things we can see is that Republicans are returning their ballots in greater numbers. The average in the districts listed is that Democrats have returned 4.8% of their ballots, while Republicans have returned 6.4% of theirs. Republicans in these districts are returning them at a rate that's 35% higher than Democrats. The number is 85% higher in CA-16 but only 4% higher in CA-21. As I said above, these districts should be disregarded. The more Republican counties in CA-16 have probably reported while the more Democratic counties in CA-21 have.

The return differentials in many of these districts are close to the 2014 election than any other election. It's possible some of these Republicans are voting Democratic. That seems unlikely because:

1. Republicans have been abandoning the Republican party in California. Those left are likely committed to the GOP.
2. Republicans have given Donald Trump very high approval ratings.
3. They didn't in previous elections.
4. If you're a Republican voting Democratic, it's probably something you're wrestling with. You're not rushing to get your ballot in early.

Regardless of who they are voting for that Republicans are voting at much higher rates than Democrats goes completely against conventional wisdom that suggests Republicans aren't enthusiastic and Democrats are. Many of the districts Democrats are looking to flip have more Republicans in them than Democrats so Democrats need to do vote at a much higher rate than Republicans and get NPP and some Republican voters to pick them. So far they aren't doing the former and we don't know for sure they are doing the latter. The primary suggests Democrats have some advantage with these voters, but when you're dealing with a district that has significantly more Republicans than Democrats they'll need to do more than that.

If this type of turn out continues it seems unlikely Democrats will flip Republican districts and several Democratic districts (CA-3, 16, and 24, for example) that have been close in past elections could be close in this one. So watch PDIs numbers and my spreadsheet and make your own judgment.