( - promoted by Matt Stoller)
Last night in the Democratic primary for Maryland's fourth congressional district, turnout was significantly higher than in September 2006. Seventeen months ago, when Donna Edwards lost by 3%, there were about 77,000 voters in the primary. Last night, turnout seems to have been about 113,000, an increase of about 47%. Despite the large increase in turnout, Wynn's overall numbers did not change much. Seventeen months ago, he received about 38-39,000 votes. This year, it looks like Wynn will receive about 40-41,000 votes.
While the data to prove this definitively is not yet available, it appears that the new voters overwhelmingly broke for Donna Edwards. In September of 2006, she received around 35-36,000 votes. Yesterday, she received around 67-68,000 votes. The new voters in this district overwhelmingly turned out for the presidential primary. Among those new voters, a substantial majority turned out for Barack Obama (Obama overwhelmingly won MD-04). And among those new Obama voters, it appears that an overwhelming majority backed Donna Edwards, the first progressive primary victory against an incumbent U.S. House Democrat in a decade.
Now, this did not happen because the Obama and Edwards campaigns worked together. The Obama campaign had been organizing in the district for some time, and Donna Edwards did not even endorse Obama until last week. Her campaign was supported by a coalition of progressive groups and activists similar to those that supported Howard Dean in 2004, Barack Obama in his Senate primary in 2004, and Ned Lamont in his Senate campaign in 2006. What happened was that there were two different progressive movements working independently of one another in the district. The Obama campaign brought the new voters, and the Edwards campaign organized those new voters into supporters of a progressive challenger to a corporate, incumbent Democrat.
In the end, the two movements supplemented each other quite nicely. Now, we not only have a wave of new voters, but we have a wave of new progressive voters that sent a powerful message of change to Democrats, corporations, and basically everyone in Washington, D.C. That strikes me as exactly the message that both movements hoped to send.
This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. It is the fulfillment of a long-time progressive hope that a mature, well-organized progressive movement could one day turnout a wave of new progressive voters and create a progressive governing majority. Now that such a turn of events has finally started to happen, I have to say that I am very open to the promise of the Barack Obama campaign. I see no reason why our two movements cannot continue to scratch each others backs in, for example, Anne Dicker's State Senate primary against corrupt, conservative incumbent Vince Fumo in Pennsylvania's first senatorial district on April 22nd. This is a potential wave of change that can sweep the nation, and it would not be possible on this scale without the two movements scratching each other's backs. However, because both movements are roaring, we stand at the brink of a transformational moment in American politics.
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