This article looks at new voter registration by political party from 2007 through Sept 2008 for Kansas state representative districts.
In particular, the new voter registration data for two house districts targeted by a mysterious non-profit in 2006 will be analyzed, since these districts are likely targeted races this year.
A PDF file shows the new voter profiles for each of the 125 State Rep districts.
In 2006 the Kansas non-profit “Progress Kansas” was used to knock out certain State Reps, and elect others. The players behind this non-profit are still not known, but the Meadowlark is still pressing the IRS for more information about this non-profit.
In House district 16 in Overland Park, Gene Rardin benefited from three negative mailings sent by Progress Kansas. Rardin won by only two votes.
In House district 54 in Topeka, Joe Patton overcame three similar negative mailings also sent by Progress Kansas and won by only 237 votes.
With these close races in 2006, new voter registrations in 2007-2008 may explain party targeting in these districts.
House 16: Gene Rardin (Incumbent, D-Overland Park) vs. Jim Yonally (R-Overland Park, prior office holder).
In 2006 Jim Yonally was the incumbent Republican in this district, but lost in the August 2006 primary to Dennis Kriegshauser. Kriegshauser was the victim of the negative mailings by Progress Kansas, which benefited newcomer Rardin.
The Meadowlark researched but never published an article showing that many of the contested voters that put Rardin in office in District 16 moved from District 16. Whether these voters were truly residents of District 16 in 2006 is still not known.
The chart above for 2007 shows “normal” voter registration in an “off-year.” Republicans had a narrow edge (119) over Democrats (96), but there were a significant number of Unaffiliated voters (165).
In 2008, Democrats apparently pushed for a number of new Democratic registrations in late January. Democrats have slight edge in 2008: 165 to 142.
District 16 will be a close contest in November, and perhaps Democrats have a narrow advantage from their voter registration efforts.
Conservatives in District 16 likely will see little difference between Rardin and Yonally, especially since both have benefited from political money from Dr. Tiller’s ProKanDo PAC.
House 54: Bruce Cooper (D-Topeka) vs. Joe Patton (Incumbent, R-Topeka).
Not much is known about Bruce Cooper. Joe Patton is a well-known conservative.
Republicans enjoyed a very narrow edge in new registrations in 2007: 58 to 54. But Democrats have been more successful so far in 2008 with 178 new Democrats and only 151 new Republicans. There have even been more new Unaffiliated voters (174) than Republicans in 2008.
The winner of this race must do well with the Unaffiliated voters.
Political tricks in 2008 using non-profits? Time will tell if a new Kansas non-profit will get involved in these and other state rep races.
Methodology: Voters with a registration date after 12/31/2006 were extracted from the Sept 2, 2008 list of registered voters in Kansas, ONLY if they had no other August or November voting history (other than the Aug 2008 election). Unfortunately, some county clerks change the registration date if anything about a voter’s record is changed, and this method of selection ignored “old” voters. For this analysis, registration dates in the future (e.g., 5/27/2018, 8/13/2070, 1/8/2520, and 8/1/6200) were set to the date of the file, 9/2/2008. [NOTE: The Kansas Secretary of State REFUSES to act on most data problems reported in voter registration data — there is no known way to give the Kansas Secretary of State feedback so problems in the data file can be fixed.] Registration dates were converted to week index values within a year, and counted by week. A cumulative sum of all weeks was computed and plotted.
Click here to view PDF with new voter graphics for each of the 125 State Rep districts.
Feel free to study the new voter profiles in the various State Senate districts and post comments below.
Related:
- How will new voter registration affect close State Senate Races?, Kansas Meadowlark, Oct 5, 2008.
- New Registered Voters by Kansas County, Kansas Meadowlark, Oct 4, 2008.
- Analysis of New Voters in Kansas by Congressional District, Kansas Meadowlark, Sept 29, 2008.
- More new Democrats than Republicans register to vote in Kansas in 2008, Kansas Meadowlark, Sept 25, 2008.
- IRS stonewalls investigation of Kansas non-profits active in politics in 2006, Kansas Meadowlark, Aug 2, 2008.
