Funny....Larry Sabato and other left leaning pundits picked the Democrat to win. A Democrat who outspent the Republican by a 3-1 margin. A Democrat who was well known in the State versus a nobody. But yeah...the election means nothing.
But you will notice, I didn't. In fact, in January, I was already writing that it is advantage GOP in this election. The demographics of the district are simply more favorable to the GOP, especially at the state and local level.
Gotta question for you. How can you explain why that district in particular went for Obama in both elections? Would that make that a swing district? In this case, it swung toward the Republican candidate.
On the presidential level, yes. But a completely different clientele tends to come out for mid-terms versus prez elections, and yet an even different clientele tends to come out for specials before primary season, which was the case last night. mid-terms and specials are generally called "base" elections. Well, in CD-13, the GOP base is considerably larger than the DEM base, and indies tend to vote a lot less in mid-terms and specials.
We have seen this phenomenon over and over again, and it explains why a president's party can get pummeled in the mid-terms (see: Eisenhower 1954, Reagan 1982, Clinton 1994 and Obama 2010) and yet, go on to be re-elected in the next prez election.
In 2011, the DEMS won the majority of the Wisconsin state senate recall elections (but not enought to retake the state Senate) and at that time, I warned my Democratic friends that Walker was likely to remain in office in the case of a statewide recall election against him. Why? Because a different clientele shows up for those little specials as opposed to a big statewide election.
For this reason, it makes no sense to compare presidential election results per CD (results which, btw, are gathered up by crowdsourcing) to congressional results. You can even see the difference within the same election. Almost never does the same amount of voters cast votes for a Representative in any given CD as they do for president, even in the same cycle.
The comparsion can be fun or entertaining, but it is of no statistical predictive value at all.
Which is why I stood by my mid-JANUARY prediction that the GOP was likely to retain this seat.
Hope that information helps.
