Daily Liberal Mapping Project: Franken needs turnout from CD5

This is the fourth of nine articles in the Daily Liberal Mapping Project. These articles examine Minnesota's voting patterns precinct by precinct, with data from the 2006 election. Perhaps you missed my analysis of CD8, CD7, and CD6?

In this edition of the Daily Liberal Mapping Project, we look at the heart of DFL territory, CD5. CD5 is the home of liberal Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to Congress. The district is pretty much a guaranteed Democratic vote, and has a very high Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+21.

The 5th not only has a very strong Democratic vote, it generally has party-line voters. Volatility is a measure of variation across races. Precincts with high volatility are those that see a lot of ticket-splitters. As the map below shows, there is not a single district with volatility higher than the state median.




However, there is one thing that stops CD5 from putting more DFLers in office--turnout. Turnout is poor throughout the district, with only a handful of precincts where over 75 percent of eligible voters actually voted. This low turnout seriously harms the DFL's chances in statewide races. The final map illustrates the above point clearly. This map combines voting percentages and turnout into a single measure, the percent of eligible voters that voted for the winning party. Looking at this measure, it is clear how Democrats' majority in CD5 is diluted: only a smattering of precincts had a Democratic vote of over 55 percent of eligible voters, despite the fact that over 85 percent of votes cast were for Democrats. Fixing this problem could provide a huge boost for Al Franken in November.



Keith Ellison's "Explode the Vote" effort to add 20,000 new voters in CD5 is important, but only if those new voters actually vote! After his voter registration drive, Ellison -- with help from Franken -- should plan on a major Get Out the Vote operation. CD5 is also another place where Barack Obama can be expected to have huge coattails. Expect Obama to have a major impact on turnout among CD5's large populations of youth and African-Americans., just as he has throughout his campaign. Depending on his impact, Obama could potentially tip the Senate race toward Franken.

Like this post?
Daily Liberal Mapping Project: Franken needs turnout from CD5	Subscribe by RSS	Subscribe by Email
What is this?	What is this?