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By KEVIN NEVERS and VICKI URBANIK Porter County rode the national Barack Obama wave on Tuesday, contributing to the first victory—albeit wafer-thin—a Democratic presidential candidate in Indiana in recent memory. The county—a Toll Road county—also tried to start a wave for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson, who easily defeated incumbent Republican Mitch Daniels here but lost statewide. With all 124 Porter County precincts counted, Obama took 39,046 votes or 52.73 percent to John McCain’s 33,796 or 45.64 percent. Obama won in the county, in other words, by virtually the same margin President Bush did in 2000, when he took 34,688 votes or 53.64 to John Kerry’s 29,313 votes or 45.33 percent. Long Thompson beat Daniels in Porter County by an even greater margin, garnering 39,420 votes or 54.31 percent to Daniels’ 31,337 votes or 43.18 percent. Again, Long Thompson won in the county by roughly the same margin Gov. Joe Kernan did in 2004, when he lost statewide to Mitch Daniels but won here with 35,114 votes or 55.13 percent to Daniels’ 27,483 votes or 43.15 percent. Indeed, the Republican rout in Porter County was almost complete. No Democatic incumbent for a countywide office lost, and no Democratic candidate vying for an open countywide seat lost. Ticket-splitting in countywide races did save two Republican incumbents—Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford and Porter County Commissioner John Evans—but could not save two others: Porter County Council members James Burge and Bill Carmichael. Meanwhile, turnout in the county was high—66.12 percent—with 21.10 percent of registered voters casting straight-party Democratic ballots and 16.12 percent casting straight-party Republican ballots. Yet—surprisingly—percentage turnout was not as high as in the two previous presidential elections: in 2004, 73.98 percent of registered voters in Porter County cast ballots; in 2000, 70.21 percent of them did. In 2008 the number of registered voters in Porter County totaled 112,811, an increase of 24,145 or 27 percent over the number of those registered in 2004: 88,666. In raw numbers, 74,596 voters cast ballots in 2008, an increase of 9,004 or 14 percent over those who did in 2004: 65,592. Duneland The results in Duneland’s 28 precincts largely mirror Porter County’s as a whole. Obama won all but 5 precincts. McCain took only Westchester 2, which votes at the Porter County Visitors Center; Westchester 14, which votes at Brummitt Elementary School; Liberty 4, which votes at the Whispering Sands Mobile Home Park; Liberty 5, which votes at Liberty Intermediate School; and Jackson 1, which votes at Jackson Elementary School. Long Thompson did one precinct better than Obama, taking 24 of Duneland’s 28 precincts. Daniels won only Westchester 2; Westchester 6, which votes at the Dune Acres Town Hall; Westchester 14; and Liberty 4. As a measure of Daniels’ unpopularity in Duneland, in fact, Long Thompson took two precincts also won by McCain: Liberty 5 and and Jackson 1. That bit of ticket-splitting occurred sporadically throughout Porter County: in Union 2, for instance, Washington 2, and Boone 4. The average voter turnout in Duneland was 67.85 percent, just a tick better than the countywide average, with considerably fewer voters than countywide casting straight-party ballots: 13.91 percent casting Democratic ballots, 10.26 percent casting Republican ones. The Duneland precinct with the highest turnout was Westchester 18, which votes at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, with 80.77 percent of registered voters casting ballots; the lowest, Westchester 2, with 44.34 percent of registered voters casting ballots.
Posted 11/5/2008
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