Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana was defeated by 20 points in his primary election, defeated by a Tea Party member.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Indiana, you tell the voter worker which ballot you want – you don’t declare a party ahead of time.\u00a0 Indiana calls it a “closed” primary, which means that once you choose a ballot you only vote for races for that party – you can’t mix and match between different parties for different offices<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.in.gov\/apps\/sos\/primary\/sos_primary12?page=office&countyID=-1&partyID=-1&officeID=4&districtID=-1&districtshortviewID=-1&candidate=<\/a><\/p>\n Indiana has about 4.2 million voters registered.<\/p>\n Richard E. Mourdock got 391,689<\/strong> votes If you’re not familiar with the demographics of Indiana, it is very (85%) white, with an important exception.\u00a0\u00a0 As David Letterman used to joke about obliquely, Lake County – the county on Lake Michigan close to Chicago – is very different from the rest of Indiana.\u00a0 The Ford factory and Pullman complex (that no longer exists) in South Chicago drew blacks from the South as part of the Great Northern Migration (and that in turn caused Indiana to be very active with the KKK, working with labor unions to keep southern blacks from taking away “their” jobs).<\/p>\n Many of the black migrants settled in North West Indiana, particularly in Gary near the US Steel factory – Gary is 84% African American.\u00a0 As you move inland, the demographics quickly become more white\/republican.\u00a0\u00a0 I lived in this area for about 5 years and drove around Gary on a regular basis looking at things related to railroad lines and the like.\u00a0 At least 20 years ago, it was a hopeless wasteland, not much different than the city of Detroit.<\/p>\n If large numbers of Obama Democrats were voting against Lugar in Lake County pretending to be Republicans, that would make the case that Lugar losing was not the result of a Tea Party “victory”, but rather Democrats knocking him out to increase the chances of their candidate winning.<\/p>\n So what do the facts say?\u00a0\u00a0 [Lake County Results<\/a>]<\/p>\n The official results won’t be certified until May 21st – but at a county level, Lake County had:<\/p>\n Joe Donnelly (D) got 26,988<\/strong> votes So even though the Democratic primary was meaningless, Mr Donnelly got more votes than the two Republicans combined – and Mr Mourdock’s vote percentage among “Republican” voters was about 70%, a bit higher than the 60% he got statewide.<\/p>\n For comparison, in 2010, Dan Coats was trying to get back his Senate seat from Evan Bayh(D) who announced suddenly he was retiring – how did Lake County vote in that primary election? [results<\/a>] and how different or similar were the counts?<\/p>\n Don Bates Jr – 1,249\u00a0 (Ronald Reagan Conservative) There was no Democratic race as Evan Bayh withdrew too close to the primary, so the Democratic party just named their general election candidate (who ended up losing to Coats).\u00a0\u00a0 So in 2010, about 12,300 people showed up announcing they were Republicans – in 2012,\u00a0 a bit over 19,000.<\/p>\n Indiana is about the most Republican state in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lugar lost in all but two counties – the only county where he had a sizable margin (about 6,000 votes) was Marion County, where Indianapolis is located.<\/p>\n So what do you think based on those numbers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana was defeated by 20 points in his primary election, defeated by a Tea Party member.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Indiana, you tell the voter worker which ballot you want – you don’t declare a party ahead of … Continue reading
\nRichard G. Lugar got 257,687<\/strong>\u00a0 votes
\nJoe Donnelly (D) had no competition and got 204,860<\/strong>\u00a0 votes.<\/p>\n
\nRichard G. Lugar (R) got 5,852<\/strong>\u00a0 votes
\nRichard E. Mourdock (Tea Party)\u00a0 got 13,542<\/strong> votes.<\/p>\n
\nRichard Behney – 524
\nDan Coats – 5,292\u00a0 (Republican “Establishment”)
\nJohn N Hostettler – 3,399\u00a0 (Ron Paul)
\nMarlin Stutzman – 2,097\u00a0\u00a0 (Tea Party)<\/p>\n