In addition to Chris Lydon’s stylings, MassINC has a nifty article which divides Massachusetts into ten, count ’em, ten “states” based on results in the last few elections. (Registration required — they just take your email and name.) Hey sco, you of the purple Massachusetts map, this one is for you.
We’ve been having fun wondering whether Patrick “has the cities” or not — whatever that means. This article might illuminate that question a little bit: Based on past voting patterns for gubernatorial candidates, it may mean the “Brink Cities” of Springfield, Fall River, New Bedford, and so on. For instance, Reich got crushed in these areas; and frankly, it doesn’t take too much to imagine that his liberal Cantabrigian swagger might not have gone down too well in these places. Is the Patrick campaign better on organization, style and substance in the cities? Do they know who he is?
Hi, Susan H from BelowBoston here, and I saw an article which named these “regions” right after the 2004 Election.
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Cranberry Country just happens to be the most conservative part of the state – which was a major reason why we started our blog- to shine some progressive light on the region.
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We are aiming as a goal for our blog to get guest writers from every town in “Cranberry Country” to come on and post on belowboston to get a real sense of what is happening in our region, in each town. I don’t feel as comfortable posting on my neighboring towns as I do my own and we have people lined up to do this especially after the Dem Convention.
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I will say that Deval Patrick has a stong hold on the delegates of Cranberry Country because John Walsh is so repected as past President of The Plymouth County Democratic League. Every delegate I know ( and I am one) is committed and ready to strongly work for Victory in September and then in November.
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I am a little concerned about the recruitment of Hull Selectman Ron Davy to run as GOP candidate for State Treasurer; he will be defeated I am confident, but I feel that the run for statewide office will be used to run against our popular Dem St Rep Garrett Bradley who holds a seat once held by Mary Jeanette Murray of Cohasset – she held that seat for decades- 2 years from now. I sense the Republicans in our area are setting the stage for runs at all levels – Selectman, Planning Boards, School Committees etc.
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We have to be ever vigilant in Cranberry Country.
I need to read that article all the way through and the candidates’ teams should as well. Particularly in the LG’s race, I think certain of the candidates could/should focus on winning just a few of those and end up winning. Remember, Tim Cahill got the nomination with only like 36 or 40% of the primary vote. In both races, but particularly in the LG’s race, candidates may be well-served electorally by NOT worrying about areas they can’t win and instead focusing their efforts on a couple of these. My sense is that as goes Ponkapoag, Shoppers World and Offramps, as goes the state.
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Fascinating stuff.
beat me to it!
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MassInc puts out great stuff, their reports are like political crack (so addictive… not that I know.)
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I laughed when Cambridge and Somerville got grouped with Western Mass (“Left Field”), but after reading through BMG for quite a while, I can see where that comes from đŸ˜‰
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glad to see you promoting some good reading, MassInc is a great resource for a politophiles (and I have no affiliation with the group whatsoever.)
You know, they recently sent me a complimentary issue since we’re mentioned, and I’ve been devouring it. Great fun for the local wonk-wanna-be. (“Wonka-be?”)
I’m only surprised that they didn’t include Brookline as well.
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You notice the western part of “Left Field” is Berkshire, Hampshire, and Franklin counties, and not Hampden county. Just right.
That’s a good question, and one I was wondering about myself. On the one hand, including it with Bigger Boston makes sense, since they are adjacent, share the Green line, and many people who live in Brookline work in Boston.
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On the other hand, Cambridge was included in Left Fields. I’m not saying that Brookline and Cambridge are the same, but Cambridge is also adjacent, shares a T line, and houses many who live in Boston.
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Maybe it’s the “artsy” liberal base — Cambridge is more artsy than Brookline, and supposedly the Western parts of MA are growing artsy.
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Or, since the voting population of each region was designed to be the same, maybe they just had to figure out where to put Brookline in a way that made the populations work, and it could have just as reasonably been put in Left Fields were it not for an otherwise population imbalance.
is that it’s tough to track a geographical region over 10 years b/c of demographic changes. how well does this apply to the 2006 landscape?
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I’m sure this is a question the author and editors wrestled with at length.
Like Merbex, I read the 2004 article, and would question the inclusion of the Islands in the Left Field category.
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Nantucket and the three GOP town committess of Martha’s Vineyard sent their first delegates to the GOP convention in Lowell for over 20 years.
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I wonder if Mass INC talks to people there, or just hangs out on the beach? Take a look at registrations – they would surprise you.
I give MassInc the benefit of the doubt (they likely talked to folks, while they were chilling on the beach.)
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as I recall from the article, they used gubernatorial voting patterns as the gauge, and the mosty recent was just less than 4 years ago. Times change – again, my hesitation with geo-political absolutes.
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of course, I don’t think the author meant for this to be taken as an absolute.
Is programming computers in an office space that’s in a gigantic circa 1910 mill building.
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I’d say I’m safely in postindustria.
This article was fascinating — I found it very interesting that places like Shopper’s World and Offramps tend to be some of the more moderate, free-swinging places — supporting Romney and the 2000 income tax cut but rejecting the income tax elimination proposal of 2002.
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This trend brought to mind an issue I have thought about a lot. I live in the western suburbs (Concord, to be exact); as MassINC points out, this area (Shopper’s World) had the lowest amount of sigs for the anti-gay marriage ballot initiative but, partly because of the many wealthy people there, tends to skew more fiscally conservative.
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I don’t think this area is innately conservative at all, but I do believe that there is a disconnect between suburban voters and what they perceive as the Boston hack machine. Places like Concord and Lincoln, though, are certainly not bound to vote GOP in gubernatorial elections and one reason I support (and am a delegate and future intern for) Deval Patrick is that I feel he is the candidate best-positioned to take these suburbs, many of which voted Romney in 2002, as well as traditional Dem strongholds. No matter who you support, though, it’s an interesting question to consider: is there a way to turn these suburban areas in a heavily blue state in a more progressive direction (especially in Gov. races and state ballot initiatives). Will the suburbs always be more fiscally conservative or can serious government reform help turn the tide? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions, but this article has certainly made me ponder them more.
As a very loyal and vocal Patrick supporter I would agree that responses likening Tom Reilly to a conservative are nonsense, he is also not a Beacon Hill insider by any standards, having met the man repeatedly when he was hanging around Cambridge during his DA days and being a proud supporter of his during the AG race I looked forward to his run, but was left awed by how inept his campaign was run and the ‘play it safe’ way he ran the campaign. Also having seen both Deval Patrick and Tom Reilly speak in person I would say that Patrick makes a much better connect as a public speaker.
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Certainly it seems that Patrick is the underdog, and I always root for underdogs, and I hope he can win, I would agree that Reilly is by far the most electable but I think that Deval would at the end of the day be a better and more compelling governor.
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As for Gabrielli he has yet to convince me this isnt just a way for a millionaire to blow some cash, have some fun, and score some political revenge. Though I wouldnt be surprised if he won by staying in the middle of the Patrick and Reilly fight and let them decimate one another, like John Kerry did in Iowa. Lets hope not though.
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As a Cambridge resident my PR vote would look like this in order of preference.
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1)Patrick
2)Reilly
3)Gabrielli
4)Grace Ross
5)Mihos
6)Healy
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Why would you vote for Mihos and Healey at all?
With PR (proportional representation), you rank as many of the candidates as you want in your order of preference. Sometimes you vote all the way down the ballot just so you can put someone down as your very last choice. That information becomes available and makes some interesting pub conversation – who is the most disliked local pol? So, speaking as a fellow Cantabridgean, it’s just our quirky system of voting, and not a sign of ever really voting for Healey or Mihos.
Oh, I know the voting system here well. I worked for city council candidate Jesse Gordon last year, remember? I ran the election day get out the vote and everything. I was the one who had to explain to our volunteers (and sometimes our campaign people đŸ™‚ how to identify voters in a single transferrable vote system – if someone says they’re definitely gonna vote for your candidate but not sure if it’s gonna be a #1 or #2 vote, you ID them as a 3 (undecided). If someone says they’re gonna vote for your candidate #2, you ID them as a 4 (voting for someone else). It’s unintuitive and volunteers are always tempted to mis-ID.
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Anyway, off the tangent. As you wrote,
“you rank as many of the candidates as you want in your order of preference.” (emphasis mine)
That’s exactly right. You vote for the candidates you want in ranked order. You don’t vote for the candidates you don’t want. If you mark down a vote for a candidate, there’s always the chance that your ballot will end up going for that candidate, depending on the order of elimination. If you don’t want your vote to go to a particular candidate, don’t vote for them.
At least my vote will count. There is always the lesser evil – always a choice between two candidates. And there is always one candidate who earns my last place vote. My last place vote will never elect anyone to office – if there is a contest between two candidates, my ballot will always go to the one I prefer.
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Are you able to determine which of the 21 candidates got the most of those last places on the ballot?
I have some knowledge of the Cambridge elections. The first thing I would point out is that there is always a (remote) chance that your LAST choice could end up with your preferential ballot. This is even true if you ranked ALL candidates. For example, if you gave a #1 vote to Sam Seidel (last guy counted out) or if your ballot ended up with Sam at some point, your ballot would stay with Sam until the last count. If Reeves (last guy elected) was your last choice, then it’s possible that your ballot would go to Reeves since all other candidates would have been eliminated at that point.
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Almost all voters, however, will see their ballot end up with one of their top few choices. In fact, in the 2005 City Council election, there’s this:
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Voting Success:
There were 16202 ballots cast (including invalid ballots).
12748 voters elected their #1 choice — 78.68%.
2384 voters elected their #2 choice — 14.71%.
432 voters elected their #3 choice — 2.67%.
111 voters elected their #4 choice — 0.69%.
46 voters elected their #5 choice — 0.28%.
21 voters elected their #6 choice — 0.13%.
12 voters elected their #7 choice — 0.07%.
14 voters elected their #8 choice — 0.09%.
9 voters elected their #9 choice — 0.06%.
425 voters did not elect any candidates — 2.62%.
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Note that 78.68% of voters elected their 1st choice, 93.39% of voters elected either their 1st or 2nd choice, and 96.06% of voters elected either their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice.
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Number of candidates ranked:
87 voters ranked 0 candidates — 0.547%.
1190 voters ranked 1 candidate — 7.34%.
1350 voters ranked 2 candidates — 8.33%.
2761 voters ranked 3 candidates — 17.04%.
2379 voters ranked 4 candidates — 14.68%.
1987 voters ranked 5 candidates — 12.26%.
1527 voters ranked 6 candidates — 9.42%.
1188 voters ranked 7 candidates — 7.33%.
966 voters ranked 8 candidates — 5.96%.
1186 voters ranked 9 candidates — 7.32%.
367 voters ranked 10 candidates — 2.27%.
155 voters ranked 11 candidates — 0.96%.
104 voters ranked 12 candidates — 0.64%.
72 voters ranked 13 candidates — 0.44%.
45 voters ranked 14 candidates — 0.28%.
46 voters ranked 15 candidates — 0.28%.
77 voters ranked 16 candidates — 0.48%.
124 voters ranked 17 candidates — 0.77%.
590 voters ranked 18 candidates — 3.64%.
1 voter ranked 27 candidates — 0.006%.
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There’s more at http://rwinters.com
If you want me to extract any other information from the actual ballot data, just ask.
I happen to have the raw ballot data from the last three Cambridge city council elections on my computer, so I wrote a quick perl script to run the numbers. In 2003, voting for 9 seats on the council and with a choice of 21 candidates, and counting write-in votes as well, the average number of candidates per ballot was 6.5. Of the 20,958 ballots cast, 7490 (36%) had 4 or fewer candidates listed – they voted for less than half of the 9-member council. Only 573 voters actually voted for all 21 candidates.
personally, i’d vote like this in a IRV system:
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1) Patrick
2) Ross
3) Gabrieli
4) Mihos
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and that’s it..