"Santorum surges in the South" read a headline in today's Duluth News Tribune for an Associated Press story written by David Espo. The first sentence begins "A resurgent Rick Santorum swept primaries in Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday night…"
But what does "sweep" really mean? With partial returns in Alabama, "Santorum was pulling 35 percent of the vote…" That means that 65 percent of the vote went to other candidates. To me, a sweep would be 60 or even 70 percent of the vote. I did not see any turnout figures, but if we assume the turnout was 50 percent, if that, then Santorum had the support of less than 20 percent of the voters. That is a sweep?
With partial returns in Mississippi, Santorum had 33% of the vote. That means that 66% of the vote went to other candidates. That is a sweep?
I do wish election stories would include all this information instead of sweeping generalizations about a particular candidate "winning" with a "sweep" or a "landslide". If nothing else, it would give the "winners" a bit of humility instead of a feeling of a "mandate".
