Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Turnout Expected to Help Reilly, Patrick

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It has been hypothesized here that Galvin’s predictions are intended to fuel a self-fulfilling prophesy, whereby he, as an incumbent, would benefit from low turnout.  However, some independent authorities tend to agree:

Dr. Clyde W. Barrow, the director of the Center for Policy Analysis at UMass Dartmouth, said Galvin’s 20 percent prediction “doesn’t seem that far off” given the trend for primaries in a non-presidential election year.

If this year’s Democratic primary does draw as few as 620,000 voters, it will help Patrick and Reilly, Barrow predicted.

“Low turnout likely benefits both Reilly and Deval Patrick, and that’s because when you have low turnout that means it is party activists that are showing up, and both of them represent the moderate and liberal wings of the Democratic Party, so they have their party organizations turning out their supporters,” he said.

The ubiquitous Jeffrey Berry suggested that a surprisingly high turnout would benefit Gabrieli:

A surprisingly high turnout could be good news for Gabrieli, who has been advertising heavily on TV.

“If there is a high turnout, my guess is Chris Gabrieli’s chances improve markedly, in that his votes are the softest,” Berry said. “So there’s a higher turnout by people who are wavering, and Gabrieli may be attractive to them because of his TV commercials.”

On Keller @ Large, veteran political analyst John Henning contended that Tom Reilly may benefit from the areas expected to have high turnout – urban centers, Southeastern MA, Worcester County.

Interestingly, he did not offer a word about Gabrieli.

Here’s weather.com’s current forecast for Tuesday.

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Comments

  1. If the voter turnout stat is true, and if all of the people who have visited BMG in the past month vote on Tuesday, that means that fully 12,000 of the people who vote on Tuesday will have visited BMG.  That means that this great experiment in grassroots politics is turning out to be quite influential.  Congrats to everybody who set this site up. 

  2. If the voter turnout stat is true, and if all of the people who have visited BMG in the past month vote on Tuesday, that means that fully 12 percent of the people who vote on Tuesday will have visited BMG.  That means that this great experiment in grassroots politics is turning out to be quite influential.  Congrats to everybody who set this site up. 

    • For people who visit from home and work.  Still, the site founders and active user posters deserve a lot of credit.

  3. What you label as the Berry quote is actually more from Barrow.  Here’s what Prof. Berry said according to the linked article:

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    Jeffrey Berry, a Tufts University political science professor, believed a low turnout would benefit Patrick because studies have shown that highly educated residents are more likely to vote, a group that Patrick polls strongly with in Massachusetts.

    “They will turn out and vote, and he has always put the most emphasis on building a field organization,” Berry said.

    A surprisingly high turnout could be good news for Gabrieli, who has been advertising heavily on TV.

    “If there is a high turnout, my guess is Chris Gabrieli’s chances improve markedly, in that his votes are the softest,” Berry said. “So there’s a higher turnout by people who are wavering, and Gabrieli may be attractive to them because of his TV commercials.

  4. MavDem – do you generally save your posts as drafts before finally publishing them?  If so, try not doing that – it may be part of the problem.

  5. It upsets me when the Secretary of this Commonwealth has no faith in the voters of his state to get out and vote.  We have a heavily contested race for Governor, Lt. Governor and…oh yeah there is a contest for Secretary of the Commonwealth too.  But that last race is the last thing that Galvin wants you to know about.  Unfortunately based on the Poll in Sunday’s Globe, I guess he is getting his way on that one.

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    But I always have Faith that the People Will Get Out and Vote!  I hope that we prove him wrong and have a very high turnout on Tuesday. 

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    um, yeah, Politics is my Religion!

    • is to make sure that all the poling places are correctly staffed and supplied.  That he talks about it ahead of time is a good thing — otherwise we’re more likely to have an Ohio Nov ’04 scenario.  Sure, we all want higher turnout, but Galvin’s job includes making sure that the polling places are ready for whatever comes, without burning too much in extra resources.

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      So, show up and vote!

  6. Interesting that the candidate of inclusion and getting people to “check back in” needs as few people to vote as possible.

    • That said candidate is the one who for months has encouraged people to check back in, register to vote, and show up for the primary.

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