Anatomy of a special election victory: Senate District 25

DFLer Kevin Dahle emerged victorious in a special election this week to replace state Sen. Tom Neuville. Dahle prevailed against a well-funded, well-known Republican in the person of former state Rep. Ray Cox, who served half the district in the Legislature for several years until going down to defeat in 2006.

Dahle’s victory in SD25, covering parts of Rice, Sibley, Scott, and Le Sueur counties about an hour south of the Twin Cities, has set off a flurry of recriminations among Republican Party activists, one side accusing the other of not helping enough and the other complaining about a closed process that produced a weak candidate. In the mix are (of course) remonstrations that the DFL played negative politics to the bitter end on behalf of Dahle. Sen.-elect Dahle, for his part, managed to stay positive throughout the short campaign, and now heads to St. Paul as part of a veto-proof majority.

Let’s dig into the numbers a bit and analyze those claims, shall we?

First, let’s immediately throw out the accusation of negative politics influencing the outcome. Turnout in this special election was approximately 24 percent — solid for a special election, but a good deal lower than the 70 percent the district saw in 2006. Simply put, in a special election the goal is not to build on one’s base, but rather to contact every last member of your base and turn them out, because they are the most dependable votes. Their opinions and likelihood of voting are also least likely to be affected by negative attack ads and mailings.What about the weak candidate argument? Recent comments from some Republican bloggers have called Ray Cox a Republican-In-Name-Only or “RINO,” focusing on his support of the DREAM Act and opposition to No Child Left Behind. But less-than-total ideological purity does not a weak candidate make — Cox was a known quantity across half the more liberal part of the district, having represented it in the Legislature before. He also had a large money advantage, transferring more than $15,000 from his previous campaign committee to this race. Essentially, he was a part-incumbent in this race, and incumbency is an advantage. The other half of the district is represented by conservative Republican state Rep. Laura Brod, and Cox should have been able to go there and turn out enough votes to counteract the effect of Northfield (see chart). If anything, Cox’s weak performance in Le Sueur County is indicative of a weak party structure that either could not efficiently contact or effectively produce turnout from its voting base.

So instead of focusing on what Cox may or may not have done wrong, what about what Dahle may have done right? He got massive turnout in Northfield — a necessity in this district, considering how many college students reside at Carleton and St. Olaf and lean heavily toward DFL candidates. This is good, and was enough for state Rep. David Bly to defeat Cox in 2006, but that was only half of the Senate district — without solid turnout from the rest of the district, namely in Le Sueur County, Dahle still ran the risk of defeat. However, he got very solid turnout in those 20 precincts, actually winning in the more conservative part of the district (again, see chart above).

Would this hold up in a general election? It depends. As noted above, 2006 turnout was close to 70 percent across the entire district, and the DFL candidate lost a relatively close race to Neuville, 18,144 to 16,711 (52 percent-47.9 percent). Every election is different — different candidates, different campaigns, different issues, different styles — and Sen.-Elect Dahle has three years to prove his worth as an incumbent.