Winding down tonight after wrapping up the polls at the California primary election today, our second election of three this year. We had a very small turnout at our poll so it was a long slow day.
On the plus side, Obama has wrapped up the Democratic nomination. On to November…
I am not expecting that one to be a small slow election! I think we’ll have record turnout in November.
2 Responses
so do you see increased turnout in november as a positive for the democratic party? oh, i do hope so though my less idealistic self is very wary.
Naomi,
Yes, it will be a positive thing for the Democratic Party.
Even this election, in my very Republican precinct, the turnout has approached nearly even numbers. For the first time, we handed out more Democratic and Non Partisan ballots than Republican ones. Considering we ran about 65% Republican turnout even in 2006, this is amazing.
I’m seeing registrations turn like crazy – families that used to vote Republican are now registered as NP or DTS. And many, many split families where the husband has remained Republican but the wife is now registered Democratic. The kids are almost all DTS or Dems, very few Republicans. My own kids are DTS voters.
And many less “rabid” Republicans, which has been a very nice change. Most of them actually behave themselves now. ;^)
The Democratic party still needs to do a much better job of appealing to the kids and younger voters. They are not convinced the party has changed. I truly hope that with Obama’s win and his focus on rebuilding the party’s ground troops, we’ll see things truly change in the Democratic party now. It’s going to be a very interesting campaign.