Election season is to San Diego Free Press is like Valentines Day is to florists. Based on what we’ve seen thus far, 2018 is looking to be a good-if-not-great election for progressives.
Since much of the next 24 hours will be like waiting for results of a biopsy, I’ve elected to skip the prognostication process share a few nuggets of info.
People who take comfort from voter turnout numbers have reason to be encouraged. Michael McDonald at the Elections Project says pre-election day votes will break the 40 million mark when all is said and done.
While the early turnout numbers have already shattered records for the last midterm election, I’ll add the caveat about early voting still being a growing trend. I’d also like to point out that pictures of long lines at polling stations in the pre-workday hours don’t mean much.
From what I’ve been able to figure out (states do early voting stats differently) young voters are turning out in impressive numbers. But so are older voters. And non-white voters. And white voters. And Republicans. And Democrats.
Very interesting–Latinos in Texas increased early voter turnout more than any other race or ethnicity.
Also very interesting— The Trump reelection campaign ad linking Central American migrants seeking asylum to an undocumented immigrant convicted of killing two Sacramento sheriff’s deputies in 2014 was pulled by Fox News. (Both NBC and Fox aired the ad before deciding it didn’t meet their standards, whatever those are.) The bad guy in that ad, by the way, illegally entered the country during the Bush administration, and was released from custody by Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Our numbers were wonderful–Statistics representing the public interest in our pre-election coverage and voter guides at the San Diego Free Press should be gratifying to all our volunteer writers and editors.
- Since our mid-term coverage began on November 15, 2017, we’ve published exactly 200 stories (including this one) on the 2018 elections.
- In October, the site had 128,681 unique visits, a 164% increase from 2016.
- Yesterday, November 5, set the all-time record (Since June 4, 2012) for unique visitors at SDFP–18,302. 16,804 of those were first timers and they viewed 23,334 posts. Today will probably break that record.
Our top two posts over the past month (not including today) were:
- Our Explainer on Voting for Judges – 33,679 views
- The SDFP Progressive Voter Guide – 21,830 views
- The posts on the State Superintendent of Instruction contest, County ballot measures, and City ballot measures rounded out our top five.
- The comments of a couple of dozen deplorables who thought they’d be witty and tell us they were looking for who to vote against –har, har, har, har–all went directly into the trash bin. Yup, we’re not tolerant and we censored each of you because we’re mean, Commie, Antifa, Jews on the take from Soros.
Seriously, Thank You. Let’s all hope it was worth it.
One last thing: It’s gonna be days before some of the contests in California are settled. It’s my take that we’ll have an overall sense of how this election plays out by 9pm.
I’ll see ya on the flip side.
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I read the Daily Fishwrap(s) so you don’t have to… Catch “the Starting Line” Monday thru Friday right here at San Diego Free Press (dot) org. Send your hate mail and ideas to DougPorter@SanDiegoFreePress.Org Check us out on Facebook and Twitter.
Doug Porter
Latest posts by Doug Porter (see all)
- Last Call. Last Column. - December 14, 2018
- Which Presidential Candidate Will You Support in 2020? - December 13, 2018
- Mounting the Assault on Big Gay and Other Drivel From SDSU’s Minimum Wage Scrooge - December 12, 2018
and you can perhaps take a little well-earned time off.
(not that i’m trying to get rid of you :-)
The majority of the election coverage (200 articles) was provided by Doug Porter. Thanks from the SDFP eds, Doug!
Thanks so much, Doug, for all your work.