In introductory level economics, students learn the concepts of stated and stated preferences.
Stated preferences are exactly what they sound like: statements that people make stating that they like something. In contrast, stated preferences are what people actually do when they have to weigh stated preferences against each other.
I like ice cream. That’s what I like.
But I’m not eating ice cream right now because I don’t want melted ice cream dripping and making my keyboard sticky, and I also want to avoid gaining weight on my waistline, which is an obvious preference.
Ever since Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016, pundits and analysts have wondered whether he was elected because of Trump, or because of Trump. The party that nominated Mitt Romney as its candidate in 2012 was the epitome of God-fearing plutocracy. Noblesse oblige — Would we nominate a serial bankrupt conspiracy theorist with a penchant for sexual abuse for president?
And more importantly, how did he go on to win the presidency?
Some say that voters, though by no means a majority, have shown that they prefer Trump’s reckless, combative style of politics — enough voters to secure a majority of the electoral votes in a presidential election. If voters truly believe that this is a “Flight 93 election,” a dualistic battle that will determine where cultural and political battle lines will be drawn for decades, why let institutional norms or electoral results get in the way of a final resolution.
It’s a philosophy espoused by politicians and candidates like J.D. Vance, Kali Lake, Blake Masters, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Others say voters were simply turning against Hillary Clinton: Once her name was no longer on the primary or general election ballot, people stopped voting against her and, in turn, stopped voting for politicians, including Trump, who can’t seem to take “no” for an answer.
The June 2024 primary elections provide Republican voters in particular, and Nevada primary voters more generally, with the opportunity to indicate whether they support one of these two explanations for Trump’s 2016 victory.
On one side was a candidate backed by Robert Beadles of Lodi, California, who, like Trump, owns real estate and enjoys outlandish conspiracy theories. Since moving from California to Washoe County, Beadles has been fighting tirelessly to bring Trump’s combative personality to state and local elections. These efforts have included, among other things, several spurious lawsuits and the “classiest” postcards and text messages that local voters like me would “want.”
In the other corner is a slate of candidates supported or recommended by Gov. Joe Lombard, who suggested in a recent editorial that: The New York Times Voters choose politicians with the same insight they use to choose brands of appliances. Is your refrigerator broken? Go to the store and buy a competing brand. Is housing too expensive? Go to the polls and vote to vote the incumbent out.
You don’t want your dishwasher to fight for you, you just want your dishes to be clean, why should politicians be any different?
On television, Republicans may say they like loud, bold warriors. But when it came time for Republicans to demonstrate their preferences in partisan primaries, Lombardo’s appliance-like slate won nearly every election. Even Washoe County Commissioner Clara Andriola won handily against a splintered slate of candidates recommended by Beadles. She was an unelected appointee with only one year of experience.
And that’s when Republicans vote Republican.
In the nonpartisan primary, open to voters of any party, the results were even more disappointing for the Republican Party’s more combative wing: every candidate Beadles supported either lost or finished a distant second. Every candidate he supported for the Washoe County School Board was defeated by a large margin, including incumbent Jeff Church.
Beadles’ candidates advanced to the general election on a purely technical basis: the top two candidates in a Reno City Council race advance, and his candidates, Dennis Meyer and Brian Cassidy, both received the second-most votes in their respective precincts, but each received at least 10 percentage points less than the top candidate.
While the margin of victory achieved by Beadles’ opponents was striking, the likelihood that independent primary voters would vote against an explicitly conservative candidate may not be all that surprising: Democratic primary voters who also voted in independent primaries certainly had an incentive to oppose them.
But what’s even more surprising is the lack of enthusiasm from Republican primary voters for a candidate like Trump. If anyone is convinced that voters prefer a candidate like Trump who is willing to fight for conservative ideological causes, it’s Republican primary voters.
While we acknowledge that primary results are not predictive of general election results, it is still natural to wonder how enthusiastically voters will support Trump when even the most enthusiastic voters within his party are increasingly uninterested in his style and substance.
David Colborn has run for public office twice and is now an IT manager, father of two, and weekly opinion columnist. Nevada IndependentYou can follow him on Mastodon @[email protected]Bluesky @davidcolborne.bsky.social,thread translator or by email [email protected].
