How important is Marco Rubio?
By Peter Henne
In honor of last week's elections--and continuing today's Florida theme--I'm going to make a brief foray (descent?) into domestic politics. The subject: Marco Rubio.
Rubio, the conservative Republican Senator-elect from Florida, has been getting a lot of attention recently. Readers of The Washington Post's "The Fix" voted Rubio the "most likely to run for President" and "most likely to succeed" out of the incoming congressional freshmen class. Others have discussed his "rock star status." This hyperbolic language is connected to his charisma, of course, but also by his margin of victory: Rubio beat the Democratic candidate, Kendrick Meek, by 30 points.
It seems impressive, but assumes that Rubio and Meek were the only candidates running for Florida Senate. This obviously overlooks Governor and former Republican Charlie Crist, who ran as an independent. Crist took almost 30% of the vote.
So Crist got 30, Meek got 20, and Rubio almost 50... This means that Rubio handily beat the Independent and Democrat when considered separately, but his margin of victory basically disappears when the two are combined. His success thus hardly represents a complete rejection of Democrats or an overwhelming amount of popularity.
I am obviously assuming everyone who voted for Crist would have voted for Meek if Crist hadn't been in the race: this is most likely false. Crist voters probably included independents attracted to his governing style and Republicans too moderate for Rubio but not about to vote for a Democrat. Pre-election polling, however, suggested Crist was splitting the Democratic vote with Meek, while losing Republicans to Rubio. So it is likely that the majority of voters who went for Crist would have voted for Meek. What would have happened if Crist had not run as an independent after losing the primary to Rubio? Rubio would probably still have won, but it would have been tight.
Why does this matter? Well, a charismatic idealist who narrowly won a Senate race is one thing. A charismatic idealist who "trounced" his opponent in a Senate race is another. Some perspective may thus be called for in post-election discussions.
In honor of last week's elections--and continuing today's Florida theme--I'm going to make a brief foray (descent?) into domestic politics. The subject: Marco Rubio.
Rubio, the conservative Republican Senator-elect from Florida, has been getting a lot of attention recently. Readers of The Washington Post's "The Fix" voted Rubio the "most likely to run for President" and "most likely to succeed" out of the incoming congressional freshmen class. Others have discussed his "rock star status." This hyperbolic language is connected to his charisma, of course, but also by his margin of victory: Rubio beat the Democratic candidate, Kendrick Meek, by 30 points.
It seems impressive, but assumes that Rubio and Meek were the only candidates running for Florida Senate. This obviously overlooks Governor and former Republican Charlie Crist, who ran as an independent. Crist took almost 30% of the vote.
So Crist got 30, Meek got 20, and Rubio almost 50... This means that Rubio handily beat the Independent and Democrat when considered separately, but his margin of victory basically disappears when the two are combined. His success thus hardly represents a complete rejection of Democrats or an overwhelming amount of popularity.
I am obviously assuming everyone who voted for Crist would have voted for Meek if Crist hadn't been in the race: this is most likely false. Crist voters probably included independents attracted to his governing style and Republicans too moderate for Rubio but not about to vote for a Democrat. Pre-election polling, however, suggested Crist was splitting the Democratic vote with Meek, while losing Republicans to Rubio. So it is likely that the majority of voters who went for Crist would have voted for Meek. What would have happened if Crist had not run as an independent after losing the primary to Rubio? Rubio would probably still have won, but it would have been tight.
Why does this matter? Well, a charismatic idealist who narrowly won a Senate race is one thing. A charismatic idealist who "trounced" his opponent in a Senate race is another. Some perspective may thus be called for in post-election discussions.
Labels: 2010 elections, Charlie Crist, Florida, Kendrick Meek, Marco Rubio, U.S. Senate
posted by Peter Henne at
11:02 AM
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