Vote counting for the California primary is almost complete, but it's not good news for President Biden.
Indeed, he “won”. He was virtually unopposed and easily won the nation's largest Democratic National Convention delegates in California. There is no doubt that he will be re-elected for a second term if he runs.
But the disturbing news for Biden is that hundreds of thousands of Democratic and independent voters who voted in the March 5 primary ignored the presidential election and skipped the race.
Look, the presidential vote is at the top of the ballot. How much effort does it take to engrave the name of a sitting president that everyone knows? Unlike complex ballot proposals, it doesn't require much effort.
But in the final round of state voting, more people voted for Gov. Gavin Newsom's Proposition 1, the mental health safeguard.
Mark Baldassare, a pollster with the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), said, “Typically, turnout does not skip past the top of the ticket, but declines after the top of the ticket. ” he points out.
The fact that so many voters ignored the presidential election raises two questions, Baldassare said. Will the same thing happen again in November? Also, would they support third party or independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
That won't hurt Biden in California. He is guaranteed to win 54 electoral votes in California, the most in any state. The modern Republican Party cannot win a statewide election in California.
But California voters are not completely unrepresentative. Polls have repeatedly shown that their lack of enthusiasm for Biden reflects Democratic attitudes nationally.
And any loss of support among Democrats and independent voters could hurt Biden in six battleground states where the race could tilt toward Republican Donald Trump. It's not that these voters support Trump over Biden. However, they may withdraw from the race altogether or in favor of a third-party type. That's what's scaring the Biden camp.
However, on the right, President Trump's support base is solid.
And frankly, it surprises me. Nearly 2 million California Republicans voted for a lying, disrespectful, and cheater.
In addition to being charged with 91 felonies and inciting the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, the former president recently warned that there would be “bloodshed” if he lost the election and is now shamelessly acting for profit. I am buying custom Bibles. His pitch is “Let's make America pray again.”
OK, the disaster warning cited the economic impact of foreign car manufacturing and his plan to raise tariffs on foreign-made cars. But is “bloodshed” the word we want the president of the United States to use when discussing tariff policy or conducting international diplomacy?
When Trumpers are asked why they could vote for such a low-character bastard, they always say the alternative, “Crooked Joe,” is worse.
However, that doesn't explain their vote in the California primary. Biden was not on the Republican ballot. Trump's only active opponent was Nikki Haley, a respected Republican former governor and ambassador to the United Nations.
“People want to vote for the person who is going to win,” Republican consultant Matt Rexrode told me. “They think Trump is going to be the winner and they want to get on that train.”
Trump won every county in California and about 80% of the Republican vote. Haley received about 18%.
Among Democrats, Biden received about 89% of the vote, or about 3.2 million votes.
To put that in perspective, there were 10.3 million registered Democratic voters. Additionally, there were 4.8 million independent voters (no party preference) who were able to vote in the Democratic presidential primary simply by requesting a ballot.
California makes voting very easy. All registered voters will receive a ballot in the mail with a postage-paid return envelope. And there's still a month left until Election Day.
Despite this, turnout was very low. Approximately 34% of registered voters appear to have cast their votes. Voter turnout in the 2020 presidential primary was 47%.
In California, Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1.
But in this primary, more registered Republicans actually voted than Democrats or independents.
Paul Mitchell, who runs Political Data, has a preliminary estimate of 43% Republican turnout, compared to 37% for Democrats and just 23% for independents.
“A significant number of Democrats just skipped the presidential race,” said political analyst Tony Quinn, a former Republican redistricting staffer who worked on the voter count. “Numbers don't lie.”
Quinn calculated that overall turnout was about 7.7 million voters. However, about 1.7 million of them did not participate in the presidential election. This equates to his 22% of voters. By comparison, he had fewer than 500,000 voters who skipped Prop. 1 and the U.S. Senate race.
At this point, it is impossible to analyze the total number of presidential absentees in each party's primaries. But PPIC's preliminary poll asked voters how eager they were to vote in this year's presidential election. Independents were overwhelmingly negative. The Democratic Party was almost evenly split between enthusiasts and non-fans. But most Republicans were very enthusiastic.
“Democrats are not very active in voting,” Rexrode said. “But Republicans are very upset with the way the White House is being run.
“And when I'm at the gym, people talk about how Biden trips down the stairs.”
Yes, it's an age issue. Biden is 81 years old but mentally alert. Trump is 77 years old, but she acts like a spoiled 7-year-old.
“Voters are disappointed,” said former Democratic strategist Darry Slagow. “There is a lot of uncertainty in the world, and people are desperate for strong, capable leadership.”
The California primary showed that Biden still has much work to do to be convincing.
