While there are lots of factors that play into one’s decision about how to cast his or her ballot, electability is one that invariably gets tossed around. Most of the time it takes the form of an abstract thought process; a rhetorical tool that each candidate can use to bludgeon the other. In the AL-05 Congressional race the Democrat’s nominee is all but certain: Parker Griffith. So it is fair to consider how each of the Republican candidates would measure up against Dr. Griffith in the general election when choosing who to vote for in the primary.

This particular race offers one potential match up that goes beyond the aforementioned abstract thought process: Cheryl Baswell Guthrie vs. Dr. Griffith. They went head to head in 2006 for the chance to represent Alabama’s 7th Senate district, which lies entirely in Madison County. An analysis of the numbers from that election can provide insight into how well Mrs. Guthrie would perform against Dr. Griffith. The results are not pretty.

Griffith won that election handily, pulling in 66% of the votes to Guthrie’s 34% - a 32 point spread. Of the 49 polling places that voted for that seat she only won 4, one of which had only 24 voters. Sobering to say the least.

But, did the party voting demographics hurt Guthrie’s chances then? In other words, did the district lean heavily towards the Democrats? Well, not really.

I looked at 14 different state wide offices that had both a Democrat and Republican running. I calculated the percentage of votes that went to the Republican candidate for each office. I broke the results into two sets of numbers: one comprised only of the polling places that voted in the AL Senate 7th district race and the other consisting of all polling places in the entire 5th Congressional district.

The results are shown below. A negative number indicates that fewer percent of the votes were cast for the Republican candidate in that race in the Senate district by the number of percentage points shown, while a positive number means the Republican candidate fared better in the 7th Senate district.

  • Gov.: -1%
  • Lt. Gov.: -2%
  • AG: -2%
  • Chief Justice: -3%
  • Supreme, PL 2: -2%
  • Supreme, PL 3: -1%
  • Supreme, PL 4: +4%
  • Civil Appeals, PL 1: -3%
  • Civil Appeals, PL 2: -2%
  • Civil Appeals, PL 3: -4%
  • Sec. of State: -1%
  • Treasurer: -2%
  • Auditor: -3%
  • Ag. Commissioner: -1%

Averaging all fourteen races shows that Guthrie only gave up 2% of the vote to Griffith due solely to party affiliation. Also, there was very little deviation in the voting spread across the fourteen offices, which lends credence to this analysis.

So the end result of a Griffith-Guthrie rematch could end up being just a 30% blowout, rather than a 32% blowout, in favor of Griffith. That isn’t a very appealing thought for Republican voters.

What about money? Did Griffith buy the election? Guthrie spent $284k during the race - $250k of which were personal loans. Griffith spent $761k, of which $427k were personal loans. So clearly Griffith dramatically outspent Guthrie, but Guthrie’s anemic fundraising from individuals isn’t exactly heartening. Self funding a campaign can give a politician a great degree of autonomy if elected, but self funding isn’t the best option when your opponent is willing to nearly double your own contributions.

All in all, the numbers don’t work in Cheryl Baswell Guthrie’s favor.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 9:22 am and is filed under AL-05 Congressional Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.