More On Those Johnson and Linn County Primary Statistics

After primary season I took a break from the blogging to do some vacationing, but now I'm back.

Via an occasional email contact, I have some very interesting statistics that I wanted to share with you. It's basically an update of the post More Republicans Than Democrats Voted In Linn And Johnson Counties from last month, but with hard data and links.

Here are some stats worth noting:

http://www.sos.state.ia.us/pdfs/VRStatsArchive/2010/CoJune10.pdf - In Johnson County (Iowa City), there are (as of June 2010) 40,593 registered Democrats, 16,515 registered Republicans, and almost 30,000 registered Independents.

http://www.johnson-county.com/auditor/returns/1006party.htm - the Party Change statistics are eye-opening. 478 Democrats changed to Republican, whereas 27 Republicans changed to Democrat. Of Independents, 212 switched to Democrat and 526 switched to Republican.

http://www.johnson-county.com/auditor/returns/1006primsum.htm - For results of the primary, there were more Republican (4847) primary voters in Johnson County than Democrats (4138). This, in a county where Democrats lead Republicans 40,593 to 16,515, is a telling statistic.

Don't forget that in 2008 in Johnson County, Obama got 70% of the vote to McCain's 28%.

Granted, the Republicans had an additional horse race going on (Governor and 2nd District House) than the Democrats (US Senate), but still it wasn't as if Roxanne Conlin was a shoo-in for the Democrat nomination for the Senate race until polling published right before the primary.

In fact, most polling data showed Conlin barely having much more of a chance of beating Chuck Grassley than did Democrat challengers Bob Krause or Tom Fiegen.

Now on to Linn County.

First off, Linn County (June 2010) had 52,085 registered Democrats, 50,367 Independents, and 35,603 Republicans, according to the Iowa Secretary of State's office.

At the time of the primary, registered Democrats increased to 54,853 and registered Republicans increased to 37,461. (source: Linn County Auditor PDF).

Party change (source: Linn County Auditor PDF) shows that 947 Democrats switched to Republican while 72 Republicans became Democrats. "No Party" to Democrat was 254, while "No Party" to Republican was 1461.

Out of that, 4350 Democrats voted in the primary, compared to 13,584 Republicans.

Don't forget that in 2008 in Linn County, Obama got 60.01% while McCain got 38.48%.

I would have analyzed Polk County (Des Moines) information, but the Auditor there isn't as forthcoming with information.