Primary postmortem

All right, I get a healthy serving of crow. However I did get the result I really wanted in the Congressional race, so perhaps I managed a bit of reverse psychology here.

Let’s just go to the results I predicted and how things really turned out:

Presidential race, Democrats statewide

What I said: Obama 56%, Clinton 42%, all others 2%

How it turned out: Obama 61%, Clinton 36%, all others 3%

What I did wrong: Actually I wasn’t far off but Obama outperformed in places I thought Hillary may actually carry, those areas which actually tend to vote Republican in state elections. Hillary did carry 8 counties: Allegany, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Garrett, Queen Anne’s, Washington, and Worcester. She was also within two points in Calvert, Harford, and St. Mary’s. My geography wasn’t far off but my numbers were a touch too optimistic for Hillary.

Presidential race, Democrats in Wicomico

What I said: Clinton 50%, Obama 48%

How it turned out: Obama 55%, Clinton 39%

What I did wrong: Something tells me a lot of people flipped to Obama in the last couple weeks, and having Michelle Obama pay a visit close by may have helped. But it was the same phenomemon as statewide, overestimating Hillary’s strength.

Presidential race, Republicans statewide

What I said: McCain 62%, Huckabee 26%, Paul 7%, all others 5%

How it turned out: McCain 55%, Huckabee 29%, all others 10%, Paul 6%

What I did wrong: Forgot that a lot of people had already sent in absentee ballots with Mitt Romney’s name checked. He pulled 6% and actually finished ahead of Ron Paul by about 1,000 votes statewide. On the others I was within a reasonable margin of error. McCain won all 24 jurisdictions, barely edging out Huckabee in Garrett and Washington counties. Those were 2 of the 6 places McCain didn’t get 50% but he did no worse than 45.7% anywhere.

Presidential race, Republicans in Wicomico

What I said: McCain 52%, Huckabee 35%, Paul 7%, all others 4%

How it turned out: McCain 52%, Huckabee 38%, all others 7%, Paul 2%

What I did wrong: Overestimated the Ron Paul vote here, but that’s about it. Had I just said McCain and Huckabee, I would’ve looked like a genius on this race.

Congressional race, Democrats overall

What I said: Kratovil 61%, Robinson 33%, Harper 5%, Werner 1%

How it turned out: Kratovil 40%, Robinson 31%, Harper 17%, Werner 12%

What I did wrong: Hey, I had the order right. Obviously the two bottom-feeders were much stronger in the race than I thought they would be based on the amount I’d heard about them. Of course, I don’t often run in Democrat circles.

Congressional race, Democrats in Wicomico

What I said: Kratovil 53%, Robinson 43%

How it turned out: Robinson 37%, Kratovil 32%

What I did wrong: Not accounting for the strength of the other two candidates made me look bad here too. My mistake was thinking that Harper and Werner were the Arminio and Banks of the Democrat race.

Congressional race, Republicans overall

What I said: Gilchrest 38%, Harris 36%, Pipkin 21%, Arminio 3%, Banks 2%

How it turned out: Harris 43%, Gilchrest 33%, Pipkin 21%, Arminio 2%, Banks 2%

What I did wrong: I way, way, WAY underestimated Andy Harris on the Western Shore. Figured he’d win by 2 points and he won by 34. Gilchrest actually took the Eastern Shore counties 41%-33% over Harris but got destroyed west of the Bay. Apparently the denizens of those three counties use editorial pages as bird cage liners.

Congressional race, Republicans in Wicomico

What I said: Harris 39%, Gilchrest 36%, Pipkin 20%, Arminio 4%, Banks 1%

How it turned out: Gilchrest 41%, Harris 40%, Pipkin 19%, Arminio 2%, Banks 1%

What I did wrong: I said all along it could go either way. While Gilchrest won 8 of the 9 Eastern Shore counties (Pipkin won Queen Anne’s), Harris only trailed by these amounts:

• Caroline – 0.5%
• Cecil – 1.2%
• Dorchester – 10.7%
• Kent – 38.5% (that’s Wayne’s home county, but it’s the second-smallest on the Shore)
• Queen Anne’s – 3.6% (but only 0.2% behind Wayne in 2nd)
• Somerset – 7.9%
• Wicomico – 0.7%
• Worcester – 12.4%

That’s why you got the blowout once the Western Shore (which was 44.3% of the vote) was counted. Harris won Anne Arundel, Baltimore, and Harford by margins of 18.7%, 50.7%, and 41.4% respectively. Even if you argue that E.J. Pipkin ruined things for Wayne because they were from the same local area, Gilchrest would have needed about 75% of Pipkin’s votes to catch up.

I also talked about undervoting (or overvoting) between the Congressional and Presidential races. While my numbers were well off the mark, in principle my theory was proven correct. The average undervote for the Congressional race vs. the Presidential race for Democrats was 21.8% (in other words, the total number of Congressional votes fell short of the Presidential total number by 21.8%). One of five voters left the Congressional part of his or her ballot blank. Meanwhile, on the GOP side that undervote was just 2.9% and Baltimore County actually accounted for a lot of it. Kent County actually had more votes for the Congressional race than the Presidential one and five of the nine Eastern Shore counties had an undervote of less than 1 percent.

So it was a mixed bag for me as far as predictions go, it just gives me an opportunity to learn and be better the next time.

One exciting thing about this race was that Rush talked about our results during the very first monologue segment of the program right after noon. Pat Toomey of the Club For Growth also weighed in:

We did it! Last night economic conservative Andy Harris defeated 18-year tax and spend incumbent Congressman Wayne Gilchrest in the Maryland Republican primary.

Club for Growth members like you made the difference. Our members donated over $435,000 to Harris’s winning campaign. The Club and its PAC also spent $670,000 on ads urging voters to reject Gilchrest and elect Harris.

I sincerely appreciate all the Club members whose donations to the campaign and the PAC made this stunning victory possible.

(snip)

Polls taken in the weeks before the election showed Gilchrest and Harris neck and neck, but last night Harris won 44% to 32%, with 95% of the precincts in Maryland Congressional District 1 reporting. State Sen. E.J. Pipkin placed third with 21%.

This race was one of the most difficult I’ve ever seen. When we endorsed Harris, it appeared it would be a simple race with Andy challenging the incumbent. Then just before the filing deadline, Sen. Pipkin entered the race. We were concerned he would split the anti-incumbent vote. Worse, Pipkin spent nearly $1 million out of his own bank account and much, if not most, of that money was spent on false attacks on Harris.

As you can see, Club members played a vital role to ensure the Harris campaign had the funds needed to fight back. And our PAC told voters the truth about the big government records of both Gilchrest and Pipkin.

This was no small victory. Gilchrest is an 18-year incumbent who has staved off challengers twice before. Although he is an economic liberal Republican in a conservative district, he had the advantage of incumbency and endorsements by President Bush, Newt Gingrich, and former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele. Gilchrest’s campaign also got a $180,000 boost from one of the biggest most liberal labor unions in the country, the Service Employees International Union!

But none of these advantages could overpower his liberal record of voting for tax increases and outrageous pork projects, especially when contrasted with Andy Harris’ strong economic conservative record. As a State Senator, Harris led the fight against taxes and voted against six out of nine state budgets because they spent too much.

MD-01 is a conservative district – Bush won 62% of the vote here in 2004-so we can rest assured that Andy Harris will have no trouble in November and will be joining other fiscal stalwarts in Congress next year. We can look forward to great things from Andy Harris.

Perhaps the most important consequence of Wayne Gilchrest‘s defeat is the message it sends to other liberal Republicans in Congress. When liberal Republicans come to the House floor to vote in favor of a tax increase or for a new bloated government program, they will have to ask themselves: Will the Club for Growth PAC use this against me? Will Republicans in my district toss me out like they tossed out Wayne Gilchrest? The more congressmen who ask these kinds of questions, the better off American taxpayers are.

But none of this could have been accomplished without the help of Club for Growth members like you.

When Andy Harris stands on the floor of the United States House of Representatives next year fighting for taxpayers and economic growth, you can take credit for helping send him there.

I cut the fundraising appeal out, since I know a lot of my readers just LOVE the Club For Growth. And yes, I’m a member.

So that’s how things worked out. Now we may have a record (or at least tie for it with Maryland’s Fourth District) of having a Congressman who’s the lamest of lame ducks. Even though Wayne Gilchrest and Albert Wynn both lost yesterday, they still have about 10 1/2 months to serve out their terms from the 2006 election. Plenty of time for the staffers to get out resumes.

And I see E.J. Pipkin has stepped up and “pledged his support” to Andy Harris, along with vocal Harris critic Brian Griffiths. That’s a good thing because we know Frank Kratovil will come out loaded for bear and this time there’s no legislative record to pore over – Kratovil will have that advantage in this race. While I’ll keep tabs on it over the coming months, it’s time to take a break from electoral politics and after this sentence the hiatus begins.