Last week's
Maplewood Review included stories on the local results of the primary and Maplewood's special election, with
one article covering Mark Koppen's victory, and
another on the Republican primary between Nathan Hansen and Bob Zick to determine who will face incumbent Democrat Leon Lillie in the November election for Minnesota House District 55A (which covers northern Maplewood and the entire city of North Saint Paul).
While Hansen's 57%-to-43% margin of victory seems quite strong, some folks have asked me how perennial fringe candidate and local
cable access TV goofball Zick could come even
that close to upsetting Hansen, who had after all been endorsed by the local Republican party unit. (Last election cycle, Zick ran as an Independence Party candidate for the same office. Since no one else filed under that party for that office, this allowed him to automatically get public campaign financing from the taxpayers, which he apparently spent
promoting Diana Longrie's DFL primary campaign against Lillie.)
Consider the raw vote totals: 558 to 416. In comparison, Lillie — who appeared on the Democratic column of the ballot without any opponent — received 3,138 votes. This district leans DFL, but not by
that much. Even the last-place finisher in the Maplewood special election received more than twice as many votes as Zick — but that includes all of Maplewood, not just the portion in 55A. Republican voters (especially those in North Saint Paul, without a special city council election) didn't have a lot of motivation to show up at the polls, and I don't know how much their party bothered investing in GOTV efforts. Republican-leaning and independent voters had little reason to vote in the Republican column when there were real contests on the top of the ticket in the IP and DFL columns.
End result: a low turnout, where a fringe candidate can look better on a percentage basis with a tiny number of raw votes.
Labels: campaign 2010, media
