There will be more as the weeks roll out, but enough numbers are in and crunchable to sketch a few preliminary notes about the contours of the just-ended Oregon gubernatorial primary, and the larger shapes and sizes it suggests.
Maybe the point most noted about the election, other than the actual results, was the low turnout, apparently the lowest for a primary in Oregon for decades. (The exact number of ballots and party designations on them aren’t available yet, and we’ll revisit this when they are.) A note here: The numbers for 2006 that follow are neither final nor official, but they do seem close enough to final for the statistical uses we make of them here.
The low turnout rate might have been accounted for in part by voting not keeping up with population increase. But no: The actual numbers of voters dropped. A question: Did more of that falloff occur on the Republican or Democratic side?
To judge from the votes cast for governor, the one major office up for grabs Tuesday, the falloff seemed almost perfectly split. Take the number of voters in the 2002 Republican primary for governor (332,575), compare to the 2006 combined votes (285,457), and you get 85.8% of the vote in ’06 compared to with ’02. Run the Democratic numbers for 2002 (354,284) and 2006 (303,350) and you get 85.6% – remarkably, almost exactly the same. If the decline in vote had to do with disinterest, which seems plausible but isn’t easily provable, the malaise must have crossed party lines. Or maybe (just as plausibly) each side had its own set of issues.
This primary offers other points of comparison too with 2002, since four of the six main candidates in the primary ran in both elections.
On the Democratic side, for all the storm and stress of the primary, remarkably little actually changed. Ted Kulongoski, who won both years, lost about 5,000 votes this year from his 170,799 in 2002 – hitting about 96.6% of his earlier total. His chief rival both years, Jim Hill, fell short of the earlier total too; his comparable mark was 96.4%. It was as if four years hadn’t happened and that just fewer people mailed in their ballots. You get the feeling that Kulongoski neither gained nor lost many supporters since his first election.
The situation among the Republicans was more complex, reflected first in the fact that the party chose different nominees in the two elections. Consider this (again, note that the ’06 figures are not final, but should be reasonably close):
| candidate | 2002 | 2004 | difference |
| Saxton | 93,484 | 120,319 | +26,835 |
| Mannix | 117,194 | 85,671 | -31,523 |
| Atkinson | na | 64,556 | na |
| Roberts | 98,008 | na | na |
Two numbers most obviously jump out: the gain by Saxton and the loss by Mannix. But look at the whole chart and ask yourself: Where did those Saxton numbers come from, and where did Mannix’ go? And beyond that: Where did the Atkinson votes come from, and where did Roberts’ votes go in 2006?
Recall that the 2002 race was structured (in common discourse) as two moderates, Saxton and Jack Roberts, against one conservative, Mannix. The initial take on this year’s election was the reverse: two conservatives, Mannix and Atkinson, against one moderate, Saxton. Except that this year especially, the candidates didn’t color within the lines. Much of Saxton’s tone was deeply conservative (even if, as he argued, his positions hadn’t much changed), and he had the money to put that tone across in advertising.
Still, you have to suspect that the absence of someone like Roberts sent a batch of relatively moderate votes in Saxton’s direction; even if less than a third of them travelled that route, it would be enough to account for the Saxton vote pickup. (That’s leaving aside issues like Mannix’ losing electoral track record and campaign finance headlines.)
Consider this question too: In a falloff of overall Republican gubernatorial votes of about 47,000, whose voters – Saxton’s, Mannix’ or Roberts’ – probably contributed most to the non-voting sector in 2006? You have to suspect Roberts was the big contributor to that group, meaning Saxton’s pickup in the centrist Republican sector was less than overwhelming.
But where did Mannix’ own votes from 2002 – he lost 31,523 of them – go? You have to look at Atkinson as a probable absorber of many of them, finding in the southern Oregon senator a fresh face with indisputable conservative cred. Consider, for example, the counties Atkinson won. One of those was his home Jackson County (which Saxton took in 2002), but the other two – Josephine and Wallowa – were home to substantial Mannix wins in 2002.
The Tuesday election seems to be getting some initial play – on account of Saxton’s win – as representing an important shift in Oregon politics. Some of these initial numbers suggest: Don’t be hasty in jumping to that conclusion. The changes may be less substantive than they first appear.
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