Tuesday’s voter turnout was less than impressive; it was the lowest turnout in 20 years.
From the State Election Board:
Governor’s race election turnout comparison:
2014: 823,761 (unofficial)
2010: 1,034,767
2006: 926,462
2002: 1,035,620
1998: 873,585
1994: 995,012
One thing these numbers point out is that, despite the seemingly high-energy, high-momentum campaign Joe Dorman ran, he came nowhere near energizing his base to the degree necessary to unseat an incumbent Republican governor – even one with at least a measure of political baggage and a decidedly unenthusiastic base.
Mary Fallin’s challenge in her last term is to regain some measure of public faith, and work to present herself as a true leader that establishes some basic framework of her vision for the final four years. Despite her double-digit win, there were more than a few negatives – some rather pointless, petty squabbles within her own party and among Legislative leadership.
It is surprising to me how poorly we did in the governor and state superintendent races. Governor Fallin – who has held many offices and as we all know never lost an election, got 459,788 votes. She under-performed the following people by the listed votes:
Lt. Gov. Lamb – 101,665
Comm. Costello – 43,924
Sen. Inhofe – 97,749
Sen.-Elect Lankford – 96,594
She outperformed Hofmeister by 3,300 votes.
Those are amazing numbers. Chalk it up to whatever you wish, but not very impressive. She should have been providing coat-tails to the rest of the ticket, like Lamb, Costello, Inhofe and Lankford did. It appears it didn’t have hurt us, except maybe in some county races, so we are lucky we had Obama to run against as Republicans.