[EL] competitive primaries are common in Calif. leg races when no incumbent
David A. Holtzman
David at HoltzmanLaw.com
Sun Jul 8 23:28:36 PDT 2012
I moderated a candidate forum for that (AD 46) contest.The forum was
sponsored by the Panorama City Neighborhood Council.
One of the candidates, Adriano Lecaros, seemed particularly unsure of
himself, and at least once declined to answer a question.The audience in
the banquet hall included a group of supporters, perhaps family and
friends, wearing t-shirts for him.There was apparently a bit of a
language barrier for some of them, but translation was provided.I
hesitate to say this, but it's quite possible he and his supporters knew
he had little chance of winning, but they were enjoying his candidacy.
For me at least, thoughts like that bring to mind Ralph Nader in the
2000 presidential election.And then I wonder what would have happened if
he hadn't run (or had withdrawn).
Here are the actual AD 46 primary results:
*ADRIN NAZARIANDEM11,49827.47%
JAY L STERNREP8,40120.07%
*BRIAN C JOHNSONDEM8,37020.00%
ANDREW B LACHMANDEM8,08519.31%
LAURETTE HEALEYDEM4,50210.75%
ADRIANO LECAROSDEM1,0042.40%
41,860100.00%
A reasonable scenario might be that without him in the contest, about
half of Lecaros' voters would still have cast ballots.Because Lecaros
had the same party preference as every candidate but Stern, I could see
500 otherwise-Lecaros voters voting Nazarian:180, Stern:60, Johnson:100,
Lachman:100, and Healey:60.(Lachman, by the way, is a longtime local
Democratic Party operative.)The result in that case would have been:
*ADRIN NAZARIANDEM11,67828.24%
BRIAN C JOHNSONDEM8,47020.48%
*JAY L STERNREP8,46120.46%
ANDREW B LACHMANDEM8,18519.79%
LAURETTE HEALEYDEM4,56211.03%
41,356100.00%
Actually, any scenario giving Brian Johnson a net vote gain of 32 or
more versus Jay Stern would have similarly changed the result, pitting
two candidates who prefer the same party against each other in the
November general election.For better or for worse ... perspectives differ.
In a Top Two primary, adding additional candidates from any faction can
serve to split that faction's vote, making it less likely that the
faction will capture both (or one) of the two winning spots.
It will be interesting in future Top Two primary contests to look for
strategic withdrawal (or strategic decisions, based on the likelihood of
vote-splitting, to not run or to run).
As we know, the Single Transferable Vote system (with ranked-choice
balloting) makes strategic small-percentage candidacies or withdrawal
much less worthwhile by requiring candidates to amass more than an
unbeatable fraction of valid votes to win, and by eliminating last-place
candidates to provide for virtual runoffs if necessary.In a
single((1))-winner contest, the unbeatable fraction is 1/1+((1)), or
50%.A Top Two primary is a two((2))-winner contest, so the unbeatable
fraction in a Top Two primary is 1/1+((2)), or 33.3333...%.
So to my mind, the most impressive winners in Top Two primaries are the
ones who capture over 33% of the vote.(The actual winners don't always
do that.)
On this list Rob Richie has suggested that using STV (multi-winner
Ranked Choice Voting) would improve Top Two primaries if we must keep
having two-round elections.That would be a very good idea.If voters see
a lot of withdrawal/inclusion strategizing (or maybe even bargaining) in
Top Two primaries, and find it distasteful, the idea of using STV might
gain enough traction to see it enacted.
- David Holtzman
On 7/7/2012 2:14 PM, Rob Richie wrote:
> Larry and Richard both make good points. This was an example of Top
> Two NOT making a difference. It's also agood example of how much it is
> a "crapshoot primary," as Steve Hill has been calling it.
>
> First, to be clear Top Two is only different from the old system when
> two candidates of the same party advance to the November ballot --
> given the incredibly low turnout of unaffiliated voters in most Top
> Two races this year, given the fact that such voters already could
> choose to vote in a major party primary in the old rules and given
> that fact that partisans overwhelmingly would vote for someone one of
> their party if a candidate runs,
>
> But ue to the vagaries of split votes on the Democratic side and 20%
> of voters backing the one Republican in the race, that didn't happen
> here. With relatively paltry turnout (far less than half of what it
> will be in November), this district's representation has already been
> determined for the next two years. Democratic candidate Nazarian now
> will coast -- even though a shift of a relative handful of votes
> toward the third-place Democrat from Democratic candidates placing 4th
> through 7th, and it would have been a whole different contest.
>
> Independent expenditure spenders certainly knew about this dynamic.
> They threw HUGE sums of money into this race. including tactical money
> trying to affect who finished second The Teachers Union spent $400,000
> against the Democrat Johnson who narrowly finished in third, with
> pro-charter school forces spending three that much on his behalf. See
> http://www.scpr.org/blogs/news/2012/06/18/6669/california-teachers-association-backs-nazarian-val/
>
>
> Furthermore, if you look just at the Democratic votes only and
> recaluate their percenates, you get:
>
> Adrin Nazarian - 34.5%
> Brian Johnson - 25.0%
> Andrew Lachman - 24.2%
> Lauretee Healy - 13.5%
> Adriana Lacarols - 3.0%
>
> Lachman was more aligned with Nazarian, so he's a legitimate nominee,
> but still it shows split votes and spoilers are an ongoing problem
> with the system. Backers of ranked choice voting (instant runoff) like
> me would suggest that you at least use it to reduce the field to two
> so you don't have vote-splitting affect who gets to advance- - -and
> better yet, be daring and reduce the field to three or four and then
> use RCV again in November to give voters real contests when so many
> more of them are at the polls.
>
> By the way, it will be interesting to see if Justice Stephen Breyer
> develops an opinion of Top Ttwo based on the fact that his son has
> qualified for the November ballot in Assembly District 19. Phil Ting
> won more than 50% of the overall votes, with Michael Breyer back at
> 22%, but the two Democrats both advance, with the Republican out of
> the running with 17%.
>
> - Rob Richie
>
> ##########
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 1:29 AM, Larry Levine
> <larrylevine at earthlink.net <mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net>> wrote:
>
> There were not just two Democrats in the AD 46 Primary; there were
> five. I live in the district; my office is in the district. As a
> political consultant, I observed this race very closely. I knew
> some of the candidates personally, knew their consultants, and
> knew some of the people involved in the independent expenditures.
> I think in the old traditional closed Democratic Primary system we
> would have had the same winner. It wouldn't have mattered who was
> the second place finishing Democrat but the likelihood is it would
> have been close between the actual third and fourth place
> finishers, who would have been the second and third place
> finishers in a closed Dem primary. This Primary is not a very good
> example of anything because there were too many influencing
> circumstances.
>
> Larry
>
> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>] *On Behalf
> Of *Richard Winger
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 05, 2012 9:54 PM
> *To:* law-election at uci.edu <mailto:law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* [EL] competitive primaries are common in Calif. leg
> races when no incumbent
>
> Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog tonight talks about how close the
> primary between two Democrats was, in the Assembly (lower house of
> the Cal. legislature), 46th district in which Rick happens to
> live. But there was no incumbent. It is not rare in California,
> or in the U.S. generally, to have a competitive primary for a
> congressional or legislative seat when there is no incumbent.
>
> It seems to me, even if there were no Prop. 14 top-two open
> primary in California, the race in that district's Democratic
> primary would have been close, given no incumbent. Perhaps the
> same two Democrats would have run in the old partisan system.
>
> In 2010 in California, under the old partisan system, there were
> some very close legislative primaries. For Democrats, just for
> the Assembly, there were close races in these districts: 3, 7, 9,
> 20, 21. For Republicans, there were close races in these Assembly
> districts: 25, 59,70.
>
> Also in 2010, the Democratic primary for State Senate, 40th
> district, saw these results: Juan Vargas 24,282 votes; Mary Salas
> 24,260 votes, a difference of only 22 votes.
>
> Richard Winger
> 415-922-9779 <tel:415-922-9779>
> PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
>
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>
>
> --
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>
> Rob Richie
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>
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--
David A. Holtzman, M.P.H., J.D.
david at holtzmanlaw.com
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