Little Blog Blue

The following is a article I wrote following Election Day 2004. I went through it and updated it to reflect the now-official vote totals. Warning! It is a lot of numbers and very geeky. The bottom line is: Central Pennsylvania, We Did Good! -jEff

Because of the differences in the number of people that vote from year to year, the best way to compare how the two parties did is to compare the percentage that they increased their vote total over the previous election cycle. (Below I am comparing 2004 to 2000 for the Presidential and State Senate races, and 2004 compared to 2002 for the Federal and State Representatives.)

We all know by now that John Kerry did a good job of turning out the vote, increasing his nationwide total by over 8 million people from what Al Gore received, an increase of 15.7%. However, the Republicans did a better job, getting 11.5 million new people to vote for George Bush, which was an increase of 22.9%.

Looking just at Pennsylvania, Bush improved from his 2000 vote total by 22.5%, about the same as he did nationally. But Democrats did a better job in PA than they did nationwide, increasing Kerry's total by 18.2%.

What's really great is what we did in Central PA.

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In Cumberland County, Bush's increase was 23.4%, but Kerry was right behind him with an increase of 22.1%. In Perry County, Bush increased 24.5%; Kerry 21.6%. And in Dauphin County we turned out almost 11,000 new Democratic voters to outperform the Republicans. Bush increased his vote total by 21.8%, while Kerry's total was up 24.6%!

Even more encouraging were the downticket races. (Note that as these compare the 2004 election to 2002, the percent increases are going to be greater as much fewer people vote in off-years.) Tim Holden (PA-17) beat Gekas by 3,800 votes in 2002. In 2004, he beat Paterno by over 55,000 votes! Holden increased his vote total by 333.9%; Paterno improved the Republican total by only 216.1%.

In PA-16, Joe Pitts ran unopposed in 2002. In 2004, Lois Herr captured 34.5% of the vote in uber-conservative Lancaster County. That's almost 100,000 people from one of the most Conservative districts in the nation voting for one of America's most Progressive Congressional candidates!

In State House races, we held our own over on the Republican-dominated West Shore, which I think says a lot considering how well Republicans did elsewhere. In the 199th, Christian Muniz increased his vote total by 359.6% over his 2002 showing; Republican William Gabig increased his 362.3%. In the 87th, Marilyn Zilli increased the Democratic showing by 325.1%; Republican Glen Grell upped the Republican total 327.0%. In the 88th, incumbent Republican Jerry Nailor improved his vote total by 39.4%, while our Margaret Stuski more than doubled that result, bettering the 2002 Democratic showing by 81.8%. And on the East Shore, Republican John Payne ran unopposed in 2002. This year, Dan Holt took 40.3% of the votes.

Finally, in the 15th State Senate district, Jeff Piccola increased his vote total from 2000 a measly, pathetic 6.6%. Eric Epstein increased the Democratic showing many times that, up 40.1%. Message to Mr. Piccola: you might not even have your home district locked up if you do run for Governor in 2006.

Now the challenge is to (1) keep running good, solid Democratic candidates for every seat from dog catcher to Mayor to Governor, and (2) keep improving turnout for these Democratic candidates. 2005 will have races for City and Borough Councils, Township Supervisors, and School Boards. With these local elections, we can make a HUGE difference and elect fair-minded individuals, and as an added bonus further develop and refine our voter turnout operation for the 2006 elections (because I think we all agree that Rick Santorum has overstayed his welcome by about 12 years.)