Apparently some... mathematically challenged individuals, in a great display of the new "Common Core" math standards, are perpetuating the false meme that Libertarians caused a whole bunch of Republicans to lose in Colorado in 2012. I've heard everywhere from 10-20 races (still circulating as recently as the State Republican Assembly last weekend, 12 April) where those pesky Libertarians "stole" Republican votes and caused a Democrat to win... except not so much.
Reality check: There were only 2* races in 2012 in Colorado where the margin of victory between the losing Republicans were made up by Libertarian/3rd Party votes... (CU Regent At-Large and SD19) and 1 race where the margin of victory between the losing Democrat was made up by Libertarian/3rd Party votes (SD35).
Hmm. Doesn't seem anywhere near even 10 races, now does it?
I suppose you could look at races like HD3 and HD33 as "close"--where the Democrats got less than 1% over 50%, but OVER 50% still wins, no matter HOW much over! Maybe we need to make a basic math exam a pre-requisite for Republicans pontificating about elections in Colorado.
I know it's an inconvenient truth to your narrative, OGREs. I'm sorry to once again burst your factually inaccurate bubble. And I know, just because I'm a math girl doesn't mean everyone is. But come on--if you're going to lie about something, at least made it something much harder to fact check than this.
For those of you interested, since the SOS Official Results don't include percentages, I've put that into a spreadsheet for you to check out for yourself.
*HD61 had a former Democrat Legislator running as an Unaffiliated in this race, obviously changing the dynamics. The Libertarian in this race only received 2.73%, and in this case, it is highly unlikely the majority of the 3rd Party votes would have gone for the Republican--another fun trope the OGREs parade about--so I'm not sure it really counts towards this total, but in the interest of completeness, I've included this footnote.
No comments:
Post a Comment