The election to replace Boston City Councilor John Tobin (who left earlier this year to take a job at Northeastern) is tomorrow, Tuesday November 16th.
Matt O’Malley, who won the preliminary with 53%, is facing Jim Hennigan, who came in second. O’Malley has run for council a couple of times recently; Hennigan’s sister Maura was a city councilor (and ran for Mayor).
The district covers the western portion of Boston starting at Mission Hill, through JP and part of Roslindale, through West Roxbury (the blue area on this map [PDF]).
Any thoughts on these candidates, or the makeup of the city council and what effects this election might have on it?
Please share widely!
I am biased of course, because the second I heard that John Tobin was retiring, I was encouraging Matt to run.
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p>I first met Matt O’Malley during the 2003 campaign, and it was because of Matt that when he became the campaign manager for Sheriff Cabral in 2004, that I did volunteer work for my first campaign ever. He was excellent on the issues then and is still excellent today. His work with the Sheriff’s office has exposed him to many issues around the poor, including recidivism and his work with MassEquality has made him a vocal advocate for equality.
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p>The supporters of his campaign are from all over Boston (in my case Dorchester) and I believe Matt will do well in representing both the interests of District 6 specifically and the city of Boston overall.
I have been doing a bit of volunteering for him and wholeheartedly support him.
when the other elections were held a couple of weeks ago? The polling sites were set up and staffed. Detail police were in place. Now, it has to be set up all over again, wasting valuable time and money. Is there some statute that prevents a local race running at the same time as the state and federal one?
I remember reading somewhere that the city looked into it and concluded it wouldn’t actually save money, because the expense of trying to get ready to hold this election on Nov 2 would outweigh the savings. But now I can’t find a link.
Until the results of the preliminary election were in, they wouldn’t know who the candidates were. And in this case, by the time the preliminary happened, not only were ballots printed and voter guides mailed out and voting machines probably already programmed, but absentee voting had already started. So they certainly couldn’t have just moved the final to November 2nd. They would’ve had to move the preliminary back by a pretty significant amount for it to make any sense.
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p>Now, I don’t know whether that would’ve been practical or sensible to do, with enough advance planning. I’m not sure what the right date for a preliminary should’ve been, to make it practical to combine the final with the national election. And I don’t know whether that date would’ve made sense given when the seat became open, and the various deadlines associated with that: signature collection, filing deadlines, ballot printing, etc. Maybe they could’ve done it all early enough to have made the preliminary happen a month earlier, or something.
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p>But “that makes absolutely no sense at all” is definitely not true. It may be mistaken in this instance, but it certainly makes sense in theory.
If one candidate already received 53% in a five-person preliminary election, there shouldn’t need to be another election four weeks later. Seems like a poor use of resources.
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p>(FWIW- I don’t live in Boston and I don’t have a horse in this race.)
Has nothing to do with the candidates in this race, but the dynamic often shifts from one election to the next. As the Globe pointed out in their article on the race the other day, John Tobin’s vote went from 800 down to 1100 up, I believe. Similarly, when Brian Honan ran in Brighton the first time, he finished well behind Jerry McDermott, only to overtake him in the final. Many similar examples exist. Often in Boston, progressives tend to vote more in the final election than the preliminary, and the numbers change drastically. Though other times the numbers drop when the out of the running candidates are eliminated (’93 Mayor’s race, which was close in the preliminary, not close in the final).
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p>There are other dynamics at play, endorsing organizations from Ward and Town Committees to newspapers to labor may wait until after the field is narrowed (“we like a couple of these candidates and we’ll see who makes the final”). There may be more focus on the “frontrunners” positions, or their lack thereof.
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p>As another example, what happens if one candidate gets 51%, one 48% and the third, 1%, is the preliminary winner crowned? Maybe if the winner got a “supermajority”, that would do it, but generally, let’s let democracy run its course, IMO.
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p>The real interesting aspect of this election though is the question of what this district will look like in three years, post-redistricting, given the changing demographics of the city.
It’s certainly OK to have rules that say majority wins on first round with runoff if no majority.
There were five candidates and the combined vote totals of four of those candidates still lost to the 5th candidate by 6 percentage points. In most places, you hold a preliminary election to weed out candidates, unless someone wins an outright majority. I just don’t see why he’d need to have to win another majority a second time around.
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p>I don’t know all the specifics of the races you cite- did any of those candidates win a majority in the preliminary election only to lose in the final? That just doesn’t seem right. 50%+1 should be the threshold in either election.
But the 17 point fluctuation in the Rush-Tobin race 46-37 Rush to 54-46 Tobin is strong evidence of the difference between preliminary and final elections. Likewise the Brighton elections over the years (McLaughlin-Izzo; McLaughlin-Bracken, the aforementioned Honan-McDermott) were all subject to major fluctuations with the more “progressive” candidate often finishing 2nd in the prelim and winning the final.
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p>All I’m saying is be careful of what you wish for ..
I just voted (for O’Malley) and unsurprisingly hardly anyone has shown up to vote, just 33 in my precinct so far. I really don’t understand why they couldn’t schedule the special election to go on the regular primary and election days. If I didn’t drive by the polling place on a regular basis, I might have forgotten all about it even with the steady flow of campaign mailers.
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p>I actually think that either Hennigan or O’Malley would make a good councilor for the district, but O’Malley has more directly relevant experience and clearly has wanted the job for longer.