NN&V Exclusive
(David Mansdoerfer) – Special elections tend to not reflect the national political mood. They are generally low-turnout and locally driven. Last night, Mark Amodei walked away with a nearly 30,000 vote win in a right-leaning district. So, what should be taken away from last night’s Republican victory in Nevada’s 2nd congressional district?
1. Kate Marshall tried and failed to be a conservative. Clearly, Marshall’s campaign knew that they faced an uphill battle in a conservative-leaning district. In order to try and reach out to the independent voters, Marshall slammed Amodei for passing a tax increase during his time in Carson City. This, however, was a poorly constructed strategy as special-elections tend to pit the Democrat base versus the Republican base. In the end, Marshall ended up not being conservative enough for Republican voters to cross the isle.
2. Amodei’s campaign played it safe. As the incumbent party, who isn’t having a special election due to scandal, in a right-leaning district, Amodei’s campaign did the correct thing – be conservative. Most likely, the only thing that could have caused him to lose was a political or personal scandal. Since this didn’t happen, he walked away with an easy victory.
3. Voting turnout was predictably low. In 2008, 329,520 voted. In 2010, 267,708 voted. In the 2011 special election, 129,603 voted – less than half of the 2010 vote totals. Clearly, the GOP base was much more fired up about this election. The voting total doesn’t actually tell us much about what we can expect in 2012. What it does say, however, is that Republicans played a better ground game and had a clearly superior candidate.
4. Amodei had better friends. Speaker John Boehner, American Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity all came to the aid of Amodei. Marshall, however, was left up to her own devices and received little national support.
5. Policy versus rhetoric mattered in this campaign. Marshall came out swinging on Medicare and taxes. Medicare attacks had served Democrats well in previous special elections. This, however, seemed to matter less as the focus on the national level shifted towards job creation. Additionally, Marshall looked like a hypocrite for attacking Amodei for raising taxes. Especially, since the national Democrats are trying to increase taxes to bring additional revenue into the federal government.
All in all, it is important to remember that little can be derived from special election results if you are looking at the national picture. Yet, in the case of Nevada’s 2nd congressional district, we can walk away knowing two things. First, Mark Amodei was a better candidate and was in the right place at the right time. Second, trying to be a Democrat in name only won’t fool Nevada residents.
(Mr. Mansdoerfer is the Director of Federal Affairs for Citizen Outreach. He holds a masters degree in public policy with an emphasis in international relations and state & local policy from the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. You can follow him on Twitter at @DPMANSDOERFER)
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