This is a Democratic Year, Isn't It?

If you look at the VBM margins in California, you see that the margins are almost universally more Republican than the 2016 primary, 2016 general, and 2018 primary. They are closer to the 2014 general, a very Republican year in California.

That leads to the question, “What f*&# is going on?” The fundamentals (Republican President) suggest a Democratic year. Election results and polling have been pretty Democratic. I say pretty Democratic but nothing other than the generic congressional vote points to a blue wave. And even that’s been up and down.

Explanation #1: It won’t be a blue wave, at least in California. The only vote that counts is the one that includes actual ballots and the actual ballots are Republican. I go with Occam’s Razor in that the answer supported by the most evidence is the answer.

Explanation #2: But this doesn’t jibe with other things we know. So even though Republicans are turning in ballots they’re really voting for Democrats. I find this one hard to believe. I covered it in a previous post.

NPPs are going to lean Democratic. Evidence supports this. In CA-25 VBMs in the 2016 general were R+4 and the Republican won by 6.2. In the 2018 primary VBMs were $+8.4 but the Republican only won by 3.6. In most of the Southern California districts Democrats did 4-6 points better than VBMs. While that was historically better than they’ve done, this is also a different environment. The primary and general election should follow similar patterns.

But, and this is a big but, if you do 4-6 points better than the VBMs your ballot margin deficit better be at least in the R+4-6 range. Right now CA-39 is R+20 and CA-48 is R+19. Democrats aren’t winning NPP voters by enough votes to overcome those ballot deficits.

Explanation #3: Republicans just vote early. Before 2016 this was true. Republicans voted overwhelmingly in VBM ballots and Democrats caught up later. Democrats realized that they were wasting their resources. Republicans didn’t have to knock on doors or call people who already voted. And they knew these people had voted.

I wanted to check this against actual data. I have 18 days out for the primary. Granted, it’s only one data set but it’s also the only data set in the current environment. So I compared the ballot differential for the primary and general 18 days out and looked to see how the 18 days out numbers compared to the final numbers. Scroll to the right on the Google spreadsheet to see it. (Note; I included only the districts I’m tracking that I’m confident have results that reflect that whole district)

I found that the ballot differential in 12 of the 13 districts is more Republican 18 days out and the 13th, CA-31, was D+6 then and D+6 in this election. What’s more, 8 of the 13 districts actually had differentials that became more Republican by the final tally. Of the other 5, 3 remained the same and 2 became more Democratic. Twelve of the 13 districts moved 3 points or less and the 13th, became 4 points more Republican.

If the pattern holds, CA-39 isn’t going from R+20 to R+5. It might go from R+20 to R+17.

It could be different this time but there’s no evidence to support that. And if you’re someone who clings to a belief without evidence, why read this whole post? I’m looking at the numbers to try to figure out what they mean. If the numbers don’t correlate to final result, then there’s no point in looking at them. Just look elsewhere and come back after election day.