Did the issue of illegal immigration sway any votes, turn out any voters, or have any other impact on Tuesday? Of course, it's hard to isolate one issue and determine whether THAT is what made the difference, but here are a few initial thoughts and observations.First, conservative commentator Morton Kondracke writes in Roll Call this morning about illegal immigration as an issue:
The latest election results demonstrate anew that it doesn't work. In Virginia, where Democrat Tim Kaine was elected governor two years ago despite late anti-immigrant attacks by his GOP opponent, nativist campaigns failed in key state Senate and county board races.In Fairfax County, the GOP candidate for board chairman, Gary Baise, campaigned to make Fairfax as immigrant-unfriendly as nearby Prince William County. He garnered 36 percent of the vote against incumbent Democrat Gerald Connolly.
It's true that in Prince William, county board members bent on ousting illegal immigrants by denying them public benefits and having them arrested were handily re-elected. But Democratic state Sen. Charles Colgan also won, despite efforts by his GOP opponent to capitalize on Prince William's national anti-immigrant notoriety.
I agree with this analysis. In Prince William, anti-illegal-immigrant central, Demagogue-in-Chief Corey Stewart defeated Sharon Pandak 30,318-24,336 (+5,982), with 29.43% turnout. This compares to last November 2006, when Stewart defeated Pandak 44,806-39,010 (+5,796),, with turnout of 45.56%. In other words, Stewart did about the same THIS YEAR, when he was making illegal immigration a big issue, as he did LAST YEAR, when he wasn't. And turnout was way down in this "off-off year," despite Stewart's attempt to rile everyone up into a frenzy -- the classic was the marathon public board meeting just weeks before the election -- over this issue.
Here's Marc Fisher, writing in today's Washington Post, on the same topic:
The one point on which moderates and conservatives seem to agree is that their party overplayed the illegal immigration issue. "They went for a magic bullet with immigration, and it didn't work," says a conservative strategist who doesn't want his name used because his clients don't agree that immigration is a losing issue. Prince William County board Chairman Corey Stewart, the strategist says, "won last year as the anti-tax and anti-growth candidate, and he ended up in the same place this year. He pushed hard on immigration, but it didn't move his numbers" in his reelection victory Tuesday.
Actually, that's not quite true. In fact, Corey Stewart's numbers were proportionately about the same as last year, while turnout was way down in the "off-off year" despite the anti-immigration frenzy he tried to create. As far as I can tell, that's not exactly a strong indication that this issue is a powerful one for moving votes on election day.
But, Bush/Rove and Gingrich are avoiding this issue because it's going to destroy the Republican party. If they figured it out, then it must not be that difficult a concept to grasp. Turn off the Hispanic voters [and even non-voters] and you have 3 upcoming generations of extended family that hates your guts.
I think they better find a different approach to what is admittedly a growing problem.
1) Republicans will be searching for the next silver buller... yikes.
2) PWC is far more heavily Republican than we thought and we need to do more to educate, educate, educate the voting populace.
I don't think it was as major an issue as Republicans tried to make it. But one can argue that Colgan's race was closer than it might have been, at least marginally, because of the issue. And I think a case can be made that the issue to some degree hurt Donahue and Pollard, simply by being in the news.
Do I think it is an effective issue for Republicans? Perhaps in motivating some base voters, but over all, it is not all that significant. BUT - since there is some evidence that at least it didn't hurt, I fully expect to see Republicans continuing to demagogue this issue.
Also, Corey Stewart didn't have an issue to stand on this election prior to mid-July. The Bush administration is destroying the Republican Party and many of the local party faithful had been feeling a little despondent. Having an issue to get the base out to vote was important. Otherwise, I think Pandak would've carried a larger percentage of the vote.
I think more of the problem is that people had some pretty high expectations for Donahue and Pollard that are leading people to think they were going to do better than was ever really possible.
There really isn't anywhere else in the country that this issue is more ground zero, and there isn't even clear evidence that playing the immigration card got Stewart anything more than what he got lat time around...against the same candidate no less.
Immigration is an issue that is important to voters, I think what's being overplayed here is the notion that there is a partisan advantage to Republicans, and that's just simply not the case.
The issue here is that Republicans voted REPUBLICAN in PWC and the immigration issue plays big in GOP circles.
I think the Democrats should be clear that running from this issue will only get them into trouble...but honestly, if people's discussion of how immigration played out has to be prefaced with "I think the case can be made..." it seems pretty obvious that immigration wasn't a real issue in VA.
There are lessons to be learned from both sides in this going in to 2008, and Hillary Clinton is a perfect example of how Dems get spooked by this issue.
That was my point. Dems can and should run on immigration, Virginia is evidence that there is no partisan advantage.
What's also clear looking at PWC, is that when the immigration card gets played it definitely speaks to the GOP base.
But the larger message is that when Dems do step up on Immigration and "lean into the issue" like they did in VA...the voters largely move on to voting on other issues they find more important.
The point is that Democrats need to have a clear position, and no, that position doesn't have to be hardline or nativist...but it does have to be clear.
Go to Barker's website, immigration isn't even listed as one of his "issues" on the issue page. you can't expect to run on a platform that doesn't include a plan for immigration and not take a little bit of a hit at the polls.
But that's different than immigration being an issue on which the GOP has some fundamental advantage...they don't
No one is saying immigration isn't an important issue, it is. It just isn't an issue on which the GOP has a partisan advantage. barker didn't get hurt on the immigration issue because he was a Democrat, he got hurt on the immigration issue because he didn't "lean in" to the issue.
Isn't that kind of how most of Fairfax County played the immigration issue? It really wasn't a big deal in Fairfax. However, in Woodbridge, it was. Gerry Connolly basically ignored it. Had Barker "leaned into" the issue down here, I'm not sure it would have helped because Stewart, et al were busy branding Democrats as the illegal immigration lobby.
Barker's position was that we need to enforce the laws we have on the books and that he would be glad to introduce or support legislation at the state level that would help with the problem. Basically, that was Pandak's response as well.
And the point is that in Fairfax it wasn't really a big issue, as you pointed out, in Woodbridge it was an issue. And Barker did not get out ahead of the issue...that said, he still won.
The point is that ALL of the evidence suggests that Democrats who "lean in" to the issue do well. If you want to hear more about this from the people who know you can go to the post above where Lowell puts a link to a press briefing from THE EXPERTS and you can listen for yourself. You'll heare it right from the mouth of some of Virginia's top pollsters: Pete Brodnitz (Kaine, Webb pollster) and Celinda Lake (pollster for Connolly).
I'm not making this stuff up, the evidence supports it.
If you want to continue lamenting and believing that there is some winning issue for the GOP on immigration, fine, be my guest, but I'm not willing to capitulate to the other side on this. The GOP has repeatedly lost ground politically by trying to use this as a wedge issue. And that doesn't mean the Dems should just forget about it and do nothing. To the contrary, they should speak up with loud and clear positions on this issue.
You seem to want to believe the GOP's talking points that immigration is the boogeyman they say it is. I'm just not willing to do that when the evidence is to the contrary.
to date, the Democrats have not lost a single seat on the immigration issue. Not one. Any where in the country. The most the GOP can point to is that they have used the issue in Republican districts to save GOP candidates who were under siege. And in some cases they've still lost. I'm sorry, but that's just not "the third rail" of politics and it certainly isn't the "silver bullet" wedge issue that is going to save them next year.
There were two choices -- choose a positive outlook for Prince William County -- make it into a progressive, exciting area it should be as the second (or is it 3rd?) most populated county in the state, or choose a negative outlook -- Fighting Illegal Immigration!!!! Fear! Fear! Fear! The county chose the second. Ask anybody on the street, and they'll tell you fear won. The pundits say otherwise, the people feel differently.
... and saying "lean into it" over and over doesn't make it happen.
But you could just as easily come to the conclusion that it was an electorate that voted along party lines, hence the same outcome that we had a year ago.
Just because Pandak ran a stronger race and lost by the same margin doesn't mean immigration was it.
Though, I agree, immigration was much more of an issue in PWC than it was elsewhere.
The point still stands, immigration is NOT the wedge issue that will save the GOP or tank the Dems. At best, it's an issue that can be used at the very local level to push back against the coming blue tide...and they won't be able to get away with that forever. Corey Stewart has promised to fix things he has no authority to fix. At some point the voters will figure that out and he's be out on his arse before he knows what hit him.
The effect of II for the Republicans next year could be more motivational than vote oriented. The issue does get people fired up and it's super tasty red meat for those against the "illegals". So rather than find more votes, it could serve as leverage for the GOP to pry more money and activism out of their followers. I'm sure they'd be happy to use it to bring back party followers who have drifted due to the tidal wave of failures by Dubya and company.
Also, due to this being an off-off year election the turn out was down. If I recall correctly, recent polls of the general public have shown the majority being for stronger actions to be taken against the "illegals". So, if the additional turn out in 2008 is comprised of a representative sample of those people polled, I'd expect a greater percentage of these additional votes to go to the Republicans and their anti-immigrant position.
On the flip side is that tidal wave of Republican failures. The general public may be listening to their immigrant rants, but the public has also been witnessing (and living through) massive failures across the board for the past 5 plus years - almost all of which falls squarely on Republican shoulders. And if I had to guess right now, most people voting next November are going to be thinking more about many years of total Republican failure than some fiery ranting about illegal immigration.
This is especially true given that by next fall it will be painfully obvious to everyone in VA (PWC for sure) that the GOP has over-promised and under-delivered on illegal immigration. Let's remember, the people who care about this issue expect results, they're tired of the problem.
The GOP has flatly run on promises they cannot deliver because they have mostly no authority to do so. When this problem still exists a year from now in PWC (and trust me, it will) how will the GOP defend itself?
The GOP in PWC has now accepted responsability for fixing a problem they cannot and will not fix.
Was just on a conference call about yesterday's elections in Virginia, and the consensus, at least among the assembled Democratic pollsters, was that the immigration issue had really flopped for the Republicans, and actually harmed them...the Republicans ran on a crackdown and the Democrats ran on problem solving, technocratic governance, etc. The latter won out. And for good reason -- the Republicans overplayed their hand on immigration, making it more to their appeal than it was to the average voter's worldview. By expending so much effort on immigration, they robbed themselves of the ability to put out a coherent and wide-ranging platform, and so, as long as the Democrats could point to a plan on the subject and check a box, it was fairly easy for them to lope across the finish line.
Well, that seems to settle that question....except, why does something tell me there's another side to this story?
In Northern Virginia, one of the biggest factors in the mix is that Corey Stewart remains in the political arena. Rabble rousers like him can cause a lot of trouble -- if one set of scapegoats doesn't work out, they'll just go find another. We need to keep an eye on him, and I hope that Eric and Annabel, RK, the Post and others remain on the watch.
I have heard that he saved his money to make a 2009 run for Lt. Gov. That gave me my laugh of the day. I think he might use the money to install mirrors in the hallway leading up to the Board Chambers. That or a crown.
Corey needs to be opposed every step of the way -- not ignored or discounted.