Many commentators, particularly on the right, have made much of the expected low turnout in the primarry in Massachusetts’s special election to replace Senator Edward Kennedy. Now the returns are in and the primary turnout, while low, was not so spectacularly low as the commentators were suggesting.
Some 664,796 people voted in the Democratic primary, with state Attorney General Martha Coakley beating 8th district Congressman Michael Capuano, as expected, by a 47%-28% margin. The Democratic turnout was just a little bit more than half the 1,258,923 who voted in the February 2008 Democratic presidential primary, but it was greater than the 497,379 who voted in the not seriously contested September 2008 Democratic Senate primary and it was only 16% less than voted in the last Democratic primary for an open seat, in 1984, when 789,822 voted.
That was a very close contest between Lieutenant Governor John Kerry and 5th district Congressman James Shannon, which Kerry won 41%-38%. Massachusetts has not gained a lot of population in the last 25 years, and I think the lower turnout in 2009 than in 1984 can be explained largely by the fact that the 1984 contest was much more closely contested.
Turnout in the Republican primary was only 162,706, with Scott Brown defeating Jackie Robinson 89%-11%. That was 42% below the 278,682 in 1984, when state party chairman Raymond Shamie defeated former cabinet member (and Massachusetts lieutenant governor and attorney general) Elliot Richardson by a 62%-38% margin. It was also 67% below the 500,550 who voted in the February 2008 Republican presidential primary.
Bottom line: I don’t see much in the results here to suggest that Scott Brown has a serious chance to beat Martha Coakley in the January 2010 special in a state that voted 62%-36% for Barack Obama in November 2008. There’s certainly a lot of evidence now that Democrats are less motivated to vote than Republicans, but that advantage in the balance of enthusiasm is unlikely to prove enough for a Republican victory in the Bay State.
