Today I voted for a Republican. I just got back from my polling station here in the 7th Congressional District in Virginia, having voted for David Brat.
In his politics, David Brat is worse than Eric Cantor, but I strongly believe that the future is in demonstrating to the electorate just how crazy the Teahaddists are, and that is why I voted for him. It wouldn't affect the balance of votes in Washington if Brat or Cantor were in that job; Cantor is unilaterally opposed to compromising with Democrats, and Brat would be no different. The difference would be that Brat would wield almost no power, while Cantor will wield a lot. BTW: Cantor intends to run for President some day soon. Defeating him today will wound him deeply and may prevent him from becoming a credible candidate for that.
There is only one contest on the ballot, Cantor vs. Brat. If Democrats were to vote in serious numbers for Brat, Cantor would be defeated today.
In 2012, Cantor got 619 votes at my precinct and Dem. Wayne Powell received 306. Today in 2014 at roughly 2:30 PM I was the 158th person to vote at my precinct. It would not take a very large percentage of the Powell voters to vote as I did today to swing this election.
We have been getting MANY calls from the Cantor camp to get out and vote. So many that I am very certain it is being counterproductive for them. They do not know if I am for Cantor or Brat, and yet they have called us 4 times in the last two days to remind us that today is election day and to please vote for Cantor. They should know by now that I am a Democrat, but still they call. This means they are also calling all the people who are upset with Cantor and likely Brat supporters.
Cantor and Brat signs are close to 50/50% around here. Brat households typically have one sign but a Cantor supporter is likely to have 4 or 5 signs in one yard. Cantor ads are all over TV. There has been a ridiculous saturation of that market with Cantor ads, proclaiming that Brat is a Liberal. If asked, I will tell anyone that I voted for Brat because of Cantor's ads proclaiming Brat to be more liberal.
If Brat wins today, Cantor will still run in November as a write-in. What a shame it will be to not have a Democrat on the ballot to win the seat when Cantor and Brat split the Republican vote.
I beg to differ with this author - Chesterfield is NOT a "more liberal county", it is solid conserv...The influx of northerners into CC hasn't made a difference, yet - so far the county remains overwhelmingly conserv. Just an aside...Chesterfield County's voting is a bell weather for the GOP will do state-wide - Romney got less votes in CC '12 than expected; CC GOP knew before all Counties reported that Obama would beat Romney.
--- Virginia’s lack of party registration makes it difficult to pin down whether Democrats crossed over in large numbers, but local level turnout provides some indirect clues on whether this phenomenon was widespread. On two counts, the data cast doubt on whether Democratic cross-over voting caused Cantor’s loss.
While Republican primary turnout spiked by 28 percent over 2012, according to the State Board of Elections .. http://sbe.virginia.gov/index.php/resultsreports/election-results/2014-election-results/ , Cantor received nearly 8,500 fewer votes this year than he did in the 2012 Republican primary, a drop that was larger than Brat’s 7,200-vote margin of victory. Regardless of how many Democrats turned out to oppose Cantor, he still would have prevailed had he maintained the same level of support as in his 2012 landslide.
If Democrats showed up in large numbers to vote against Cantor, turnout should have spiked highest from 2012 in Democratic-leaning areas, with Cantor seeing an especially large drop-off in support. In fact, turnout rose slightly more in counties that voted more heavily for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. ---
6. Did Cantor Hurt Himself With a Vote on Obamacare? 7. Who Is Dave Brat?
Odds and Ends
Here’s some additional reporting that may be of interest. Mike DeBonis profiles Brat’s longshot Democratic opponent, Jack Trammell, for The Washington Post. National Journal’s Shane Goldmacher looks at how Cantor’s internal pollster “whiffed” in projecting a 34-point win for Cantor. Robert Costa reports .. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics-live/liveblog/live-update-the-cantor-upset/?id=5898d1d8-a4aa-47d9-9d30-2c693f98a815 .. for The Washington Post that Cantor won’t run as a write-in candidate. His colleagues Rosalind Helderman and Laura Vozzella consider whether anti-Semitism played a role in the outcome. And Charles Pierce’s take at Esquire is always worth reading.
Joshua Holland is a senior digital producer for BillMoyers.com. He’s the author of The Fifteen Biggest Lies About the Economy (and Everything Else the Right Doesn’t Want You to Know about Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America) (Wiley: 2010), and host of Politics and Reality Radio. Follow him on Twitter or drop him an email at hollandj [at] moyersmedia [dot] com.
.. heaps under each heading, with many more links .. :) .. the voting figures there seem to be a pretty good discount of the victory by crossover vote theory ..
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