By Adam Pagnucco.
Part Four established the differences in race between the different parts of CD6. Allegany, Garrett and Washington counties are overwhelmingly White. MoCo is very diverse. Frederick is somewhere in the middle. Let’s get to voting patterns.
The charts below show CD6 Democratic primary turnout in 2022 by percentage race of precinct zip code. Asian, Black, Latino and White percentages are shown.
The pattern is weak with Asian percentage but stronger with Black, Latino and White percentages. Heavily Black and Latino precincts have lower turnouts. Heavily White precincts have higher turnouts. The differences are not vast, but crunches with micro-data on race with proprietary data like MDVAN should show more pronounced patterns.
Now let’s show the same kind of charts in the 2022 Republican primary.
The same pattern shows up for the Republicans but it’s stronger for them. Predominantly White precincts have higher turnout than heavily minority precincts.
This is not great news for candidates of color, especially on the Democratic side where we should see more of them running. Black and Latino candidates will do better in heavily Black and Latino precincts, but because those precincts have lower turnout, there is a lid on how much they will benefit from that. Since Frederick and Montgomery dominate the Democratic primary, minority votes will matter in that race because both counties have some diversity. This may be a bigger problem for the Democrats in a general election.
Next: we will look at age.