Jackson County is reddish purple now.
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| Jackson County--New York Times Maps |
I have a farm in a bright red part of Jackson County.
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| Farmland area, north of town |
I live in a neighborhood east of downtown Medford.
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| East-Medford residential neighborhood |
Kevin Stine is a leader on the Medford City Council. He is a navy veteran. He is politically astute. He is a Democrat. He is active in local politics, taking a leadership role in expanding Medford parks. He is handling his nonpartisan work on the City Council well, and he was just re-elected to another term. He is widely expected to run for higher offices at some point, which is an advantage and disadvantage. It means that people have their eye on him and have liked what they see. It also means that Republicans in the local area understand that he has a promising future, so they run candidates against him, trying to nip in the bud his career in politics. So far he has overcome that.
He offers these observations about partisanship in this community.
Guest Post by Kevin Stine
What do Ted Wheeler (2012), Ron Wyden (2004, 2010, 2016), Jeff Merkley (2014), Ellen Rosenblum (2012), and Bill Bradbury (2004) have in common? They are all current or former Statewide-Democratic elected officials who won Jackson County. And as I’m sure it will be pointed out, Barack Obama won by 47 votes in 2008.
This all seems bizarre in a 2022 context, as Republicans won across the board in partisan races. As Peter Sage has pointed out, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden received 46.4% of the vote with over $9M spent across Oregon, with plenty of money reaching Jackson County. Joe Yetter, running for Congressional District 2, spent less than $100,000 total, and got 43.2% in Jackson County.
Party-line voting isn’t a new phenomenon, but it has taken hold in a way that we haven’t seen before. The national 2016 election was the first in history where every state voted for the same party for their Presidential and U.S. Senate elections. This nearly happened again in 2020, but Maine re-elected moderate Republican Susan Collins while voting for Joe Biden.
Voting trends in Jackson County show a big change away from ticket-splitting in the post-2016 world. Congressman Greg Walden (R) comfortably won Jackson County by an average of a 66%-33% margin in his 7 elections from 2004-2016. With Trump’s election in 2016, Democratic Party activism rose with the creation of groups such as Indivisible, and generally sleepy affairs like deep red CD2 received far more attention. Jamie McLeod-Skinner ran a vibrant campaign, turning a 33% margin in 2016, down to 5% in 2018.
Greg Walden retired after a long political career in 2020, and Cliff Bentz took his place. The attention of the race largely cratered, but the Democratic nominee’s percentages stayed relatively the same. Jamie received 45.1% in 2018, while the two largely penniless campaigns after her received 42.9% and 43.2% in 2020 and 2022 respectively.
The floor has been raised for Republicans as well. Since Jeff Merkley defeated Gordon Smith in 2008, the recruiting of nominees for the Republican nomination has been a disaster. Those nominees have been Jim Huffman (2010, random law professor), Monica Wehby (2014, a good candidate on paper who absolutely imploded), Mark Callahan (2016, a perennial candidate with a host of personal issues), and Jo Rae Perkins (2020 and 2022, most famous for her QAnon support).
The percentage of the vote each Senate Republican candidate has received in Jackson County:
2010: 45.1%2014: 42.5%
2016: 39.8%
2020: 49.1%
2022: 50.9%
I don’t believe Jo Rae Perkins had any special appeal to Republican voters here, as it’s most likely that voters didn’t know anything about her other than seeing the R next to her name. The same is true of Democratic candidates running for Congressional District 2. Party affiliation is the ballgame, now more than ever.
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2 comments:
I’m a registered Democrat and voted for Republicans I thought would better address the issues, but not anymore. The problem is the Republican Party has abandoned American values. They made Trump their leader because he best represents what the party stands for: greed, lust, anger, hatred and lies. Whatever he doesn’t want to hear is ‘fake news’ and/or a ‘hoax,’ whether it’s the size of his inauguration crowd or election results.
For Republicans, the answer to climate change is more oil, the answer to gun violence is more guns, the answer to racism is more hate speech, the answer to facts they don’t like is more ‘truthiness.’ Some say we’re too politically polarized, but how are we supposed to find common ground when we don't even share a common reality? One of our political parties has gone insane. I'm sure they would say it's the Democrats, but we aren't the ones trying to sweep a coup attempt under the rug.
Perfectly stated
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