Riffing off of this NLS post:
Is Ken this wildly popular in his community? Nope. He swept all five of these precincts because it is very difficult to interest young voters in these off year elections. Turnout in these precincts were 17.1%, 18.5%, 19.9%, 23.6% and 16.0%. The only precinct that broke 20% was where Ken lived. The operation that Ken runs of turning out his GOP base works best in these precincts where there is low turnout, and he took advantage of all these young (democrats) not showing up to vote, and won all five precincts.I'll add, however, that there's plenty of time for Oleszek's campaign and the state and local party to work on improving these numbers before November. And that's the larger point for me -- we've got a lot of GOTV work to do this year if we want any chance at winning these races. For us progressive bloggers, that means explaining to our Democratic readers why these elections matter.Fast forward to 2007. Democrats have been working these precincts to come out and participate this year, right? Because if these voters show up they will be for the Democrat (Janet Oleszek), no question. NOPE. All five precincts overlap with the 40th House District and in the primary on Tuesday here are the turnout numbers: 1.3%, 1.4%, 1.9%, 2.1%, 1.1%. That's right- 2% or below turnout for the Democratic primary.
We are already in June, and this looks like 2003 all over again.