Runoff voter numbers down 43% in 3rd District, far higher than other races

June 8 primary runoff election analysis by Roby Brock shows that voter turnout fell by 43% in the 3rd Congressional District compared to the May 18 primary election.

Brock, a political analyst/reporter at TalkBusiness.net, former state Senate candidate and former head of the Arkansas Election Commission, said the analysis again proves that runoff election outcomes “are notoriously difficult to predict.”

Following is a summary of Brock’s analysis on some of the key runoff races.

• 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (GOP RUNOFF)
Rogers Mayor Steve Womack had a mighty lead on May 18 when he led the 8-person Republican field for the Third Congressional District GOP nomination. Of the 62,127 Republican primary voters, Womack pulled 19,396 votes, roughly 31%. Second-place finisher State Sen. Cecile Bledsoe had 8,245 votes, nearly 13%.

In the June 8 run-off, Womack slipped to 18,290 votes in capturing his 52% margin of victory, while Bledsoe upped her total more than 100% to 17,048. The fall-off in voter turnout between May 18 and June 8 was approximately 43%.

In the primary, Womack carried 7 of the district’s 12 counties to Bledsoe’s zero. On June 8, a marked difference: Bledsoe carried 7 counties and Womack led the ticket in 5 counties. Womack picked up Newton County in the run-off, but lost three smaller counties that he carried in May: Carroll, Johnson, and Marion.

Benton and Washington counties accounted for 62% of the run-off vote and Womack won by 59% and 53% in those two counties respectively, which outperformed his district-wide margin of victory of 52%.

• U.S. SENATE (DEMOCRATIC RUNOFF)
In the May 18 primary, the Democratic U.S. Senate race, which included a third candidate D.C. Morrison, saw 328,890 Arkansans cast votes. That overall number fell off 71,503 — about 22% — in the runoff where only 257,387 votes were cast unofficially.

On May 18, Blanche Lincoln received 146,431 votes to Bill Halter’s 139,770. In the June 8 runoff, Lincoln pulled 133,897 votes to Halter’s 123,490. Do the math: Lincoln lost 12,534 votes between the primary and run-off; Halter had a 16,280 fall-off.

In a nutshell, Lincoln shored up some underperforming counties on May 18 and lost less of her base, while Halter did not nearly match his voter intensity in the run-off.

• 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (DEMOCRATIC RUNOFF)
In the May 18 primary, Joyce Elliott carried Pulaski County, but none of the other seven counties in the eight-county Second District. Runner-up Robbie Wills won those seven counties. On June 8, the same result.

The question to examine in the Second District is: Did Wills’ strategy to go after Elliott’s positions energize his base of support or hers?

First, there was not a huge fall-off in turn-out between the two elections. On May 18, 76,502 Democratic primary voters cast ballots for one of five candidates. On June 8, 68,805 voters participated, just a 10% decline.

To answer our question: Wills saw his votes rise from 21,290 to 31,822 (+49%) from May to June. Elliott saw her votes improve from 30,370 to 36,983 (+22%) between the two elections.

• 1ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (DEMOCRATIC RUNOFF)
This race was intriguing from the standpoint that Chad Causey came from behind to win the Democratic nomination despite finishing second in the May 18 First District primary. He was the only candidate in a federal or statewide race to pull off that feat.

Causey won 16 of the district’s 26 counties to Tim Wooldridge’s nine. The two candidates tied in Prairie County.

Causey showed strength in the southern portion of the district, where his former employer and chief endorser, Rep. Marion Berry, carries much weight. But Causey did well in several other critical areas in the run-off, including a convincing win in Craighead County, the political and economic capitol of the First District.

For the record, there were 95,541 votes cast in the May 18 primary in the First District. On June 8, there were 75,522, a 21% decline — very similar to the fall-off in the U.S. Senate run-off race and more than double the percentage decline seen in the Second District.

Link here for more of Brock’s runoff election analysis.