See everybody in a couple of weeks. Here's a preview of stuff to come.
See everybody in a couple of weeks. Here's a preview of stuff to come.
For pleasant personal reasons, Public Enemy Number 1 is going on a short hiatus. There's plenty to write about when I come back.
The last few weeks has seen a surge of interest and subscribers here at PE1. Thanks to everybody — and Rick Nolte, I guess. Please bear with me while I take a little break for a vacation I may or may not have earned. It will not involve a computer.
When I get back, I will:
Write an overdue appreciation for Barbara Osthoff, the long-time “candidate mom” of the Polk County Supervisor of Elections Office who passed away recently. She’ll be greatly missed.
Note Florida’s thunderous silence of shame surrounding the most recent release of NAEP scores — a regular national testing grift that Florida has long misrepresented with bizarre triumphalism. Florida is always terrible on the NAEP; but most years it’s able to pretend otherwise through rigging 4th grade scores with mass 3rd grade retention. Apparently this year … not so much. The lack of Florida NAEP trash talk is palpable; and this year’s grift is multi-layered. None is good for Florida. See this Twitter thread below for some placeholder context. The author has some bad data; but her thread is useful for now.
Look closer at whether Polk County is a 51-49 percent R v D voting county now — or if the primary election was a weird aberration. I won’t be able to answer with certainty until we see what happens in November. But below you’ll find some fascinating Polk turnout and precinct charts, without a ton of explanation. I’ll help them make sense when I get back.
But I can say this now: if Ron DeSantis loses Florida because the Polk County anti-GOP shift from the primary is happening all over, crankitude will play a large role — both his own uncontrollable crankitude and that of local GOP cranks like Lakeland’s Saga Stevin, circled in red below at a recent DeSantis campaign event. Saga has done more to turn Lakeland lib than any politician or public figure in local history. I do not compare. LOL.
This is Lori Cunningham (R) v. Anita Carson (D) in a very generic partisan School Board race in the 2020 primary, which was an R+8 electorate. Lori won 57-43.
This the Trump/Biden race in the general, as partisan as you can get in what was also an an R+8 turnout margin. Trump won 56-42.
Now look at how similar the 2022 primary voting pattern below is to the Trump general voting pattern, but with significant Democratic overperformance in an R+13 electorate. In the election below, reasonable GOPer Justin Sharpless just nipped progressive black woman Democrat Sara Jones 51-49 in a GOP + 13 turnout.
This is the 2022 primary electorate by party.
GOP turnout spiked over the 2020 primary; but GOP performance tanked. That is fascinating. And we’ll try to figure out what it means.
And I would bet a lot of money, the GOP turnout margin advantage will drop several points.