42nd Primary Data

This post will need a wide screen and is probably not viewable on some phones. I am using Whatcom County results from 08/15/2018 but will update with certified vote totals after 08/20/2018. 

In the chart above, candidate totals for each precinct in the 2018 42nd LD Primary. Some candidate totals were combined to reflect Democrat  vs  Republican (e.g. 'VargasBallew', 'VanWervenBerkeley'). In the chart below, GE 2017 percentages per precinct for the Buchanan / Robinson vote and the current 2018 Primary turnout percentage (e.g. VotesGood/Registered). Click to enlarge the charts.

The 2018 Primary in Whatcom County's 42 LD was very evenly polarized. I have combined totals to come up with equal measures of Democrats and Republicans:

• VargasBallew, DougEricksen Senator
• JustinBoneau, VanWervenBerkeley Pos 1
• SharonShewmake, VincentBuys Pos 2

Despite the Democrats leading and winning, this primary really shows 'dead heats':

                   [,1]
VargasBallew      22620 [D] Senate
SharonShewmake    21712 [D] Pos 2
JustinBoneau      21101 [D] Pos 1
DougEricksen      19147 [R] Senate 
VanWervenBerkeley 20477 [R] Pos 1
VincentBuys       19808 [R] Pos 2


The precinct correlations hint at a 42nd district evenly polarized along along party lines.

                  VargasBallew SharonShewmake JustinBoneau DougEricksen VanWervenBerkeley VincentBuys
VargasBallew              1.00           1.00         1.00        -0.30             -0.27       -0.29
SharonShewmake            1.00           1.00         1.00        -0.31             -0.28       -0.30
JustinBoneau              1.00           1.00         1.00        -0.32             -0.29       -0.31
DougEricksen             -0.30          -0.31        -0.32         1.00              1.00        1.00
VanWervenBerkeley        -0.27          -0.28        -0.29         1.00              1.00        1.00
VincentBuys              -0.29          -0.30        -0.31         1.00              1.00        1.00

n= 119 

Precinct measures of variance for these races below show remarkable congruence and similarity in and between voting populations:

• VargasBallew, DougEricksen Senator
• JustinBoneau, VanWervenBerkeley Pos 1
• SharonShewmake, VincentBuys Pos 2

          Senate.names Senate.data          Pos1.names Pos1.data          Pos2.names Pos2.data
 1:            sum.pop1       22620            sum.pop1     21712            sum.pop1     21101
 2:            sum.pop2       19147            sum.pop2     19808            sum.pop2     20477
 3:           mean.pop1         129           mean.pop1       123           mean.pop1       120
 4:           mean.pop2         109           mean.pop2       113           mean.pop2       116
 5:         median.pop1         104         median.pop1        98         median.pop1        92
 6:         median.pop2          98         median.pop2       106         median.pop2       110
 7:             sd.pop1         132             sd.pop1       129             sd.pop1       126
 8:             sd.pop2         105             sd.pop2       108             sd.pop2       110
 9:            var.pop1       17514            var.pop1     16551            var.pop1     15908
10:            var.pop2       11012            var.pop2     11562            var.pop2     12070
11:            mad.pop1         154            mad.pop1       145            mad.pop1       136
12:            mad.pop2         145            mad.pop2       158            mad.pop2       162
13:      t.test_p.value      0.1221      t.test_p.value   0.39262      t.test_p.value   0.77873
14:    t.test_statistic        1.55    t.test_statistic   0.85596    t.test_statistic    0.2812
15:   prop.test_p.value           1   prop.test_p.value         1   prop.test_p.value         1
16: prop.test_statistic      101.55 prop.test_statistic    101.55 prop.test_statistic    101.55
17:    var.test_p.value    0.002277    var.test_p.value  0.018138    var.test_p.value   0.06864
18:  var.test_statistic      1.5905  var.test_statistic    1.4314  var.test_statistic     1.318


The unending problem for Democrats in LD 42 that they can never win the more populous CD 1 part of the 42nd. In the primary, they roughly lost 42-1 in proportions of  17K : 13K.  This type of result has routinely encouraged theories about among Democrats about mining the apartment districts, the north end Bellingham precincts, WCC, BTC and other possible veins of blue votes in LD 42 CD 2. 42-2 is technically 27% of all LD 42 votes:

   LD CD     N
1: 42  2 25809
2: 42  1 69455

CongressionalDistrict     1    2
VargasBallew          13169 9451
DougEricksen          16491 2656
SharonShewmake        12526 9186
VincentBuys           17024 2784
JustinBoneau          12080 9021
VanWervenBerkeley     17487 2990

Most elections are dominated by LD 42 CD 1, despite Democratic incursions into Ferndale and Blaine and (don't forget!) the occasional blue voter in a sea of red that constitutes Lynden and most of the north county. The precinct end result of most 42nd elections looks something like this primary, with the unincorporated county (series '1') being dominated by Republicans, Bellingham (series '2') being dominated by Democrats, Republicans and Democrats battling to a draw in Blaine and Ferndale (series '3' and '5') and Democrats getting clobbered in all the small cities of Everson, Lynden, Nooksack, Sumas (series '4','6','7','8' respectively).  

PrecinctSeries        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8
VargasBallew       9116 9494  866  209 1696 1055  105   79
DougEricksen      10489 2674  671  289 1451 3211  194  168
SharonShewmake     8724 9227  828  197 1583  976   97   80
VincentBuys       10803 2803  707  298 1537 3292  202  166
JustinBoneau       8449 9061  788  184 1514  939   91   75
VanWervenBerkeley 11089 3011  747  313 1605 3336  206  170

The last word in the LD 42nd General Election will be had by the 52,389 residents of LD 42 that did not vote in the primary. Or maybe the 304 ballots challenged by signature issues or the 264 that were just too late to be counted!

MB__[LegislativeDistrict == 42,.N,.(AVReturnStatus)]
   AVReturnStatus     N
1:           Good 42297
2:                52389
3:     Challenged   504
4:           Void   429

MB__[LegislativeDistrict == 42,.N,.(AVReturnChallenge)]
           AVReturnChallenge     N
1:                           95115
2:                  Too Late   264
3:              No Signature    44
4:        No Signature Match   173