Here’s a quick look at the Boston results. I’ll have lots more tomorrow.
First observations:
– Menino was strongest in the non-whitest neighborhoods like Mattapan and parts of Dorchester (90+% non-white population) with 70+% of the voters there. These were neighborhoods that Yoon needed to do well to place second.
– Turnout had the usual distribution of whiter neighborhoods turning out better than liberal-voting and non-white neighborhoods. But other than the very low turnout in the student neighborhoods like Allston / Fenway/ Back Bay (about 15%), the the gap between the white and non-white neighborhoods was not so big.
– The rule of thumb is that the white neighborhood turnout advantage shrinks as the overall city turnout goes up. With an expected decent turnout increase for the November general, this is good news for the non-white city council candidates and bad news for Flaherty.
– The chart shows the 2005 vs. 2009 turnout changes. The citywide turnout was up 100%. The whitest neighborhoods like South Boston / West Roxbury / parts of Dorchester were up only 50 – 66%. The non-whitest neighborhoods were up 200+%.
