An election like no other in history

May 07, 2008 10:19 am

— The year of the presidential primary is one for the record books in Elkhart County. Voters wanted to be a part of history.
Not only did more Elkhart County voters select a Democratic ballot, but they did so in huge numbers. The whopping 42 percent turnout featured 27,206 Democratic voters for the presidential race and 16,788 Republican voters for president.

Compare this to 3,465 voters who chose John Kerry and other Democratic candidates in 2004, and 15,248 Republican voters who cast ballots for George W. Bush in 2004.
It feels good to be needed, so Elkhart County residents responded and turned the primary upside down.
Although technically residents can be challenged for selecting a ballot for a party they don’t normally support, in reality voters have a free choice in the primary. So 60 percent voted for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
This is astounding for a Republican stronghold that normally fields few Democratic candidates in a county election. But the lure of helping to actually select a presidential nominee was too strong for some nominal Republicans.
However, there were some surprises on the Republican side of the ballot. Wes Culver’s defeat of incumbent state Rep. John Ulmer, who succeeded Phil Warner in District 49, was an upset. Culver polled more than 70 percent of the vote in the contest with three candidates.

Ulmer suggests some of Culver’s conservative supporters helped engineer his defeat, but there might also be some leftover baggage from Gov. Mitch Daniels’ initiatives. Daylight saving time and the lease of the Indiana Toll Road still rankle some Goshen-area voters, and Ulmer was instrumental in passing these measures.
The overwhelming Democratic vote in the primary election will give pause to Republicans in Indiana. If many are inclined to support Clinton or Obama in the fall election, then will that mean Hoosier voters will lean toward other Democrats?
Stay tuned. Politics should be very interesting this fall in the wake of a primary election like no other in the state’s history.