Can Martinez Topple Kelly? What 2020 Might Tell Us.

LEFT: Martinez/Photo via campaign; RIGHT: Kelly/Photo via campaign

In Potter County Precinct 1, Democrat David Martinez is trying to pull off an upset — unseating a longtime Republican incumbent County Commissioner, H.R. Kelly, who is again seeking re-election.

So, can he do it? While we don’t have a crystal ball, we do have past election results that might serve as a guide to this interesting election.

Martinez, a school teacher, won the Democratic primary for the position unopposed in March. Meanwhile, Kelly faced a close re-nomination fight against antique store owner Chip Hunt. After narrowly topping Hunt in the primary — by a closer margin than in any of his past primary fights — voters are now wondering how things might go for Kelly in the general election.

In 2020, voters in Precinct 1 was in the middle of the pack when it came to the three Republican-dominated precincts in Potter County, with Trump winning by a margin of +39%. This margin sits almost exactly between Trump’s +64% margin in Precinct 3 and his +16% margin in Precinct 2. (Precinct 4, which has historically favored Democrats, saw Biden win by a margin of +11%.)

Kelly was also running for reelection in 2020, though he was unopposed on the general election ballot. While he was on the ballot as a Republican, he actually overperformed Trump, garnering a total of 8,756 votes compared to the 7,549 cast for Trump in Precinct 1.

Looking at the more recent 2022 general election, Congressman Ronny Jackson won Precinct 1 by a margin of +42%, indicating that the overall party balance likely hasn’t shifted much since 2020.

So, does Martinez have a path to victory? If he does, it’s a narrow one. Martinez will have to rely not only on Democrat support but will need to pick up a large number of Republican voters.

This might not be impossible, given the fact that many signaled their disappointment with Kelly in this year’s primary, where he only received 56% of the vote. If we break up the Trump vote from 2020 by a similar ratio, Kelly could be looking at only 40% while Martinez could get nearly 60%. Martinez does appear to be attempting to woo voters who picked Chip Hunt instead of Kelly in the primary, with Martinez adopting criticism of the new District Courts building as a key talking point.

However, it would probably be more accurate to look at the raw vote totals. Let’s start with the 7,549 who voted for Trump and the 3,217 who voted for Biden in Precinct 1 in 2020. If we then take the 1,341 who voted for Chip Hunt over Kelly in this year’s primary and shift those from Republican to Democrat in the Commissioner race, there will still be 6,208 who vote Republican and only 4,558 who vote Democrat. In other words, Martinez will need to get more than just Chip Hunt Republicans break for him in order to win.

While previous results seem to favor a victory for Kelly, it is worth noting that Martinez is campaigning hard. As of our last check-in on finance reports over the summer, Martinez was outspending Kelly. With just days until the next batch of finance reports are due, we should have an update on spending shortly. In the end, we’ll simply have to wait until November 5th to see who comes out on top.