California Gubernatorial Election Results Pie Chart For this assignment there are two steps:
Analyze the 2014 California Gubernatorial election results.
Make an educated projection for the 2018 gubernatorial election.
This year’s election 2018 will be a midterm election. Midterm elections happen every 4 years in-between presidential election years. During these election years, we elect 1/3 of the US Senate and the US House of Representatives and state and local level public servants. During the last midterm election (2014) California voter turnout was at 42% for the November general election. Of the 24.3 million eligible California voters, 17.8 million were registered to vote in 2014. In 2010 turnout was at roughly 60% during the midterm election. California’s population has stayed at roughly 38 million people over the last 5 years. In this upcoming election 2018, we will elect a Governor of California. In the 2014 Gubernatorial election, Jerry Brown(D) secured 60% of the vote while Neel Kashkari(R) captured 40%. This year’s race for the Governor is between Gavin Newsom (D) and John Cox (R).
Step 1: Make a pie chart in which you show the percent of the California population that elected Governor Brown in 2014.
Step 2: Looking at the registration trends table and public opinion poll, make a prediction about this year’s Gubernatorial election. If you were on Newsom’s election campaign staff, what would you tell him to do? If you were on Cox’s election campaign staff what would you tell him to do? here is an example
Step1:
In 2010 total California pop = 37.5 million
Eligible voter pop = 23.5 million
Registered to vote = 17.2 million
Turned out to vote = 10.3 million or 60% of registered
Voted for Jerry Brown = 5.4 million or 53.8% of the vote
Voted for Meg Whitman= 4.1 million or 40.9% of the vote
Pie chart of 2014 vote
Jerry Brown was elected by 14.4% of the total population of California.
*All Data collected from the Ca Secretary of State’s Statement of the Vote
https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2010-general/complete-sov.pdf (Links to an external site.) Links to an external site.
Step 2:
Brown has consistently polled at 40+% throughout the campaign, where Whitman has struggled at an average of 35% throughout.
The poll trend line for Whitman votes leading up to the election is decreasing, meaning she is not gaining any speed but losing traction going into the election. Based solely upon the polling results, I predict that Brown will win the election.
Obviously, this isn’t accounting for their difference in political experience, name recognition, gender, or other factors. If I worked on Brown’s campaign I would encourage him to campaign in the flowing light/Whitman counties with large populations:
San Diego, San Bernardino, and San Los Obispo. He should also spend time in light/Brown districts such as Napa, Solano, and San Joaquin. He should particularly canvas in neighborhoods with a high density of younger voters, women, and the working class. If I was working for Whitman I would encourage her to campaign in the same counties, while concurrently providing negative campaign adds in those counties. In addition, Whitman should try to recruit former Governor Schwarzenegger to campaign with her throughout the southern portion of the state. Given the Republican base, Whitman should particularly encourage white men and women to turn out to vote.
