Al Franken, Dean Barkley and Norm Coleman swept the primaries (results). Jeff Hayden won 61B by a landslide and in SD 16, Alison Krueger beat Mark Olson, which is great news for the GOP elitists that wanted to tell the people of SD 16 to go against the wife beater they endorsed. This is also a victory for those who don’t want abusive nutcases in public office (here’s a funny recap on that race that I figured I take a screenshot of before it goes away).
Analyzing primaries can many times be a fruitless adventure, but hey, why not? Here’s a couple numbers I found interesting:
While Priscilla Lord Faris got 29% of the vote, for some strange reason the amount of people that chose to vote in the DFL column was just shy of double that of the GOP. I think there are some people on the right that wouldn’t believe that DFLers in Minnesota outnumber GOP’ers 2 to 1. Who are all these people voting in the DFL slot?
As MNpublius postulated, Coleman barely got his 90%. While the other two columns had a number of choices, the only other GOP choice was Jack Shephard. What this means is that over 12,000 Minnesotans voted that a felon living in Italy who’s issues are “100% similar” to Al Franken would be a better choice for the GOP than Norm Coleman. Note that 6 years ago Coleman got 94% against him. This year it’s 91%.
Can I safely say that almost 10% of Republicans would prefer a felon that’d vote like Franken that lives in Italy over a corrupt incumbent that votes with Bush that lives in Washington?
Probably not. The numbers are fun to look at though. Long story short, Franken, Barkley and Coleman swept.
UPDATE: Another way to look at the numbers: Al Franken received more votes than all the Independents and GOP candidates combined. Heh.
Loading ...
Al Franken swept the primaries? Wow. He sure did. What a pathetic first sentence to a post. I can’t wait for your post when Franken loses and you guys admit Franken was a terrible candidate to support. (Not that you will; you’ll probably call Minnesotans stupid)
Why wait for November? And I wouldn’t use the word stupid, I’m a progressive liberal elitist. Simplistic narrow minded sound bytes are not nuanced enough for me. I’m not sure what word will best describe Minnesotans if they vote Coleman back into office, but I’m betting if there is one, it will be coined by the Patrick Blacks out there, not progressive liberals. What will the latter call people who return a Senator to office who has such a lousy record of representing average Minnesotans and an excellent record of representing special interests and party line agenda? Hmmm… how about, “Typically Wealthy Right Wing Guy”?
Thanks for the SD16 Link. Two Eagan SD38 Republican officers sharing the love!!!
Only in your warped world can you actually, possibly with a straight face, include in the same post anything about Norm barely getting over 90% and say that Franken swept the primaries. Go look at the out-state results, you guys have a huge problem.
Oh Balls. PLF’s numbers were greatly increased by GOP voters crossing over and voting the DFL side of the ballot. The same thing happened on the GOP side, just not as many. You want problems? More DFL voters went to the primary polls than GOP voters. The only problem I see is that we can’t yet predict a DFL landslide. This Senate race will be close and down to the wire. Coleman may win yet, but it won’t be because he owns the issues, or has a stellar record for helping any constituencies other than special interests. He will win because people who have the most to protect, that want the status quo, are voters who never miss a chance to vote.
Norm was not hurt by his only competitor being an imprisoned expat.
Franken will do fine.
I would like eveybody to note that Franken’s vote total was higher than Norman’s.
I’m curious to hear what people think about Rep. Neil Peterson’s loss as opposed to Jim Abeler winning handily.
“You want problems? More DFL voters went to the primary polls than GOP voters.”
Um, the DFL had a contested primary. The GOP endorsed candidate was apparently contested by someone nobody has ever heard of…or even knew was running.
True, but the Senate race was not the only thing on the ballot. I think the primary was a valid slice, and whatever particulars brought out voters for either side was a good thing. If more voters came out DFL, I say cool.
In the Abler seat, there was no Republican endorsement - so there was no official party help for Abler’s opponent (no help for him either). Also Abler’s opponent posted some incendiary things on a bulletin board. This helped Abler.
In the case of Peterson, the party put resources into defeating Peterson. It’s too bad. Peterson was a decent guy. Jan Schneider, Peterson’s opponent was endorsed by the Republican party.
Abeler’s opponent Don Huizenga did himself in with the bad choices that were first brought to light on this blog (click on Don Huizenga in the “People We Cover” list to the right). He ran an extremely negative campaign and I think that really backfired.
Also, Abeler is extremely popular in 48B - this is a swing district - crossing party lines is a plus out here - lots of independent voters and Democrats showed up to support him. When you are endorsed by everyone from the MCCL to the AFL-CIO, you can pull in a lot of people.