Election Followup

So the activists swept the contests; apparently those big money donations really help you in getting your name out. For the example I gave yesterday, the activist won by almost 70/30.

This means that the state government is condemned to remain in chaos unless there's a wave election in November that allows one side's activists to dominate the whole government, which will merely push the chaos off until the counter-wave election to follow. 

Michigan made news when, on its election day, "Uncommitted" got 100,000 votes, 13% of the total. This was supposed to be because of Muslims in Dearborn voting in protest of the war against Hamas. However, North Carolina put up 88,000 "No Preference" votes -- 12.68% of the total -- in spite of having a statewide Muslim population of only about one percent. In my county, "No Preference" was 19.43% of the Democratic vote with a zero-percent Muslim population and no evidence of other Hamas-supporting communities in the area. 

I infer, then, that there's a much bigger issue -- looking across the several states that voted yesterday, I see that Biden got into the 90+% range in only a few of them. Even in states like ours, which refused to allow any of the other candidates running for the Democratic nomination onto the ballot, he's not breaking 90% while running unopposed in his own party's primary.

The school board races were lost by conservative candidates across the board, but the schools here are so bad that there's no saving them anyway. Besides, the chief problem they face is not ideology but immigration: they have now to deal with an exploded and unplanned-for population that brings no extra tax base with it to accommodate further school development. 

That's a problem with no solutions. Every other area of governance also faces increased costs associated with the migration, without an increase in the tax base that would allow them to offset those costs and in a terrible economy in which inflation has eaten up any ability of the existing base to sustain more taxes. At some point we'll have to start doing triage on what the government can actually do, in the context of a government led by warring activists who are opposed to compromise. 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Biden got 85% in Texas, with the other 15% divided among eight other candidates. Several state court races seem to have been "hold nose and vote for known evil."

LittleRed1

E Hines said...

I also noticed that the Republicans cast roughly twice as many votes in their Presidential primary as did the Progressive-Democrats in theirs. It seemed similar, although I wasn't paying that close attention in the other States.

The long talked about enthusiasm gap may be starting to get realized.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

We'll see if that holds now that the Republican contest is not competitive at the top level.

E Hines said...

We'll see if it holds as Progressive-Democrat fear of another Trump term builds. The Republican contest for the top nomination never was competitive.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

No, but realizing that outcome in the primary heretofore required voters to show up. Now it doesn’t.

Anonymous said...

Since you ask... Biden also got less than 90% of the Democratic vote here in Virginia; and the number of votes in the D primary was about half as much as in the R primary. Trump got 63% of the R votes; Nikki Haley got 35%, but I assume that most of those are actually D voters who are voting as R (we have an open primary here). There is no option for a "none of these" or "uncommitted" vote here.

Still, that result has to have D's in a cold sweat. Depending on the racial and gender breakdowns, possibly in worse than a cold sweat. This is happening EVERYWHERE.

As for Trump... it's hard for me to say. I'm not picking up the pro-Trump vibe like in 2016 and 2020-- you know, the "Trump flotillas" spontaneously forming and tooling around the Chesapeake, that sort of thing. Equally, I'm not seeing the same level of what I call the "blue blurt"-- people who insert an anti-Trump or anti-Republican statement into unrelated conversation. I work at a (very) blue job, and in 2016 especially, you'd see this all the time. Now, nothing. It's like the R's have just collectively decided that it's going to be Trump, and they're going to go out and make it happen, no more discussion. And even the most committed D's have woken up to the fact that their assumed base, is not at all lining up behind Biden.

If I were a D bigshot, I'd be very much working a plan to stage a coup at the convention and bring in somebody else-- Michelle Obama would be ideal for these purposes, if she'd do it (she says she won't). The D's are a machine, so it doesn't matter if the candidate is unqualified (maybe it's a plus, actually). Biden runs the government, in the same sense that Ronald McDonald cooks your Big Mac, I mean. I wonder if they can do it? And would it work?

--Janet

Texan99 said...

In Texas, incumbent Republican legislators who stymied school choice bills in the most recent session were mowed down at the rate of about 80%, largely at the behest of Gov. Abbott. Attorney General Ken Paxton's endorsements of challengers in the state's highest courts also were vindicated, in the wake of the incumbents' decisions impeding the prosecution of voter fraud cases.

Anonymous said...

..,.It's like the R's have just collectively decided that it's going to be Trump, and they're going to go out and make it happen, no more discussion…..

The last election was stolen. Biden is not the president as he did not win.

Talk is cheap.
Time to clean the Augean stables.

Greg