Party Switchers: Putting Numbers To What We Instinctively Know

Primary elections and party affiliation are a hot issue in American politics today, with Bernie Sanders supporters demanding "open" primaries and anti-Trump Republicans seeking "closed" primaries.

Individual party affiliation was also a hot topic both in the presidential race and in Iowa's just finished June 6 state and local primary. Sanders' longtime independent slash small s socialist affiliation, and Donald Trump's past donations to Democrats, were issues. (Hell, so was Teenage Hillary's Goldwater phase.)

Closer to home, Linn County Democrats welcomed two ex-Republicans. Supervisor Brent Oleson switched from the GOP to the Democrats so seamlessly that he won a national delegate seat last weekend. And despite Pat Murphy's protests, Monica Vernon won their one-on-one rematch and is a favorite to become Iowa's first female Democrat in Congress.

But in Johnson County, Democrats were far less welcoming to party switcher Pat Heiden, attacking her for a very recent switch and branding her a "liar" for misunderstanding her record.

Those attacks may have made the margin of her 362 vote loss to Kurt Friese for the third and final supervisor seat. But there's a flip side to this, one that all Johnson County political observers know.

Unless there is a VERY compelling statewide Republican contest, such as a governor's race or the 2014 Senate primary, savvy local Republicans and No Party voters cross over to the Democratic primary. No Republican has won a countywide general election race for a courthouse job since 1984, when Gary Hughes won his last term as sheriff. And no Republican has won a general election race for supervisor since 1958. (John Etheredge won his half term in a low turnout 2013 special election, and despite his personal popularity lost in a landslide in the 2014 general.) So the June Democratic primary is known as the "real election" for courthouse jobs.

Let's clarify some terms here. Technically speaking, Iowa is considered a "closed" primary, meaning that you have to register with the party to participate in its primary. However, it's not very closed, since you can switch right at the polls. Other states have party change deadlines well in advance of election day, which is the point on which Sanders and his supporters have focused.

An "open" primary is one in which people can participate without regard to affiliation. In some states you can vote without changing affiliation, and some states don't have party registration. And Lousiana and California have a "top two" primary in which the top two candidates go on to the fall whatever their affiliation - which is why California has a Senate general election between two Democrats.

Because Iowa has a very soft closed primary, we have numbers. And me being me, I've crunched those numbers for Johnson County. Anecdotally, it seemed like there was a lot of crossover activity, driven in part by Heiden and driven in part by the complete lack of interesting contests on the Republican side - most GOP voters had no contested races at all, with the lone exception in House 77, which made up less than a quarter of the county.

In the table below, "original party" is what you walked in the door as, and "Voted" is the ballot you voted. I've put 2012 along side for comparison.

Original Party	Voted	Polls	Early	Total	2012
D	D	5671	1835	7506	4729
G	D	6	1	7	8
L	D	4	1	5	0
N	D	282	76	358	329
R	D	208	105	313	263
D total		6171	2018	8189	5329
D	R	19	6	25	29
G	R	0	0	0	0
L	R	2	0	2	1
N	R	28	4	32	48
R	R	545	103	648	1495
R total		594	113	707	1573
Grand total		6765	2131	8896	6902

Bottom line: 683 voters walked in the door as something else, and walked out as Democrats.That's 8.3% of the total vote, and a sizable chunk, twice the size of Friese's winning margin over Heiden and almost equal to the TOTAL Republican vote of 707.

Seems like a lot. But look at that last column.

2012 also had a hot Democratic courthouse race which saw Travis Weipert unseat 36 year incumbent auditor Tom Slockett in a landslide. Republicans had a moderately interesting congressional primary, which drew the core GOP activists.

Look at those overall turnout numbers. Republicans, twice the turnout in 2012. Democrats, almost 3000 more votes this year.

But look at the crossover numbers. Despite much lower Democratic turnout in 2012, the no party to Democrat and Republican to Democrat crossover numbers are almost the same.

It seems clear that there's a crossover core of about 600 people. Half identify as Independents, probably with a capital I (I can't understand why that particular word is so favored by people when describing non-affiliation). Half are nominal Republicans, but of a type that care far more about who is on the Board of Supervisors than who is running for Congress.

With the voting histories - SUCH a hot issue this election! - and the donor records, I could probably make you a list of those 600 people in a few hours.

But if you know your way around Johnson County politics, you can make that list yourself.