MA Senate - Special Election Results thread

[Sam Spade]

Thread has been unstickied

The Mass discussion thread locked before has been reopened.  Enjoy.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't want to get into another class-definition argument, but what the map suggests to me is that much as we like to pay attention to ye olde mill towns , the Dems have at least as much of a problem is in sort of lower-middle areas - the "exurbs" and the like, where people have never been too loyal to either party.

Of course, but then that's pretty much a given, isn't it?

[Lief 🗽]

I thought Brown's speech was hilarious. He offered his daughters to the public as well. I imagine he was still a bit in shock that he actually won.

Hot.

[ElectionAtlas]

Alright -looks like I'm not going to get any help tonight and going to bed, so if someone wants to input the preliminary figures.

I'm kind of old-school and calculate by hand everything.  Coakley's number is off by about 100 votes somewhere in my maths, but it won't matter to the map:

County tonight/Town tomorrow

County	Brown	Brown%	Coakley	Coakley%	Total Votes
Barnstable	59,990	57.41%	43,609	41.73%	104,500
Berkshire	13,294	30.50%	29,847	68.48%	43,584
Bristol	93,474	56.01%	71,493	42.84%	166,897
Dukes	2,641	34.10%	4,915	63.45%	7,746
Essex	143,897	56.53%	108,354	42.57%	254,556
Franklin	9,876	35.73%	17,318	62.65%	27,644
Hampden	71,641	54.52%	57,813	44.00%	131,404
Hampshire	21,107	37.30%	34,770	61.45%	56,585
Middlesex	259,768	47.43%	283,259	51.72%	547,654
Nantucket	2,032	48.05%	2,139	50.58%	4,229
Norfolk	152,784	55.56%	120,041	43.65%	274,979
Plymouth	119,979	62.77%	69,565	36.39%	191,143
Suffolk	57,350	32.78%	115,834	66.22%	174,931
Worcester	160,274	60.90%	99,803	37.92%	263,164

The Brown and Coakley tallies match my spreadsheet almost exactly.  Brown's column is perfect.  Coakley's column is off slightly in Suffolk (115,754) and Essex (108,336).

Our Duke County overall tallies vary slightly - I have it at 7,648.  Our Franklin (27,460) and Hampshire (56,589) county totals are each off by 4.   I have 275,087 for Norfolk County.

There may be a few rounding differences with the percentages (some disagree by .01), but once adjusted for the new totals, they should be in line.

County tallies here from the Boston Globe Data:

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

County tallies here from the Boston Globe Data:

Did you vote? 

[minionofmidas]

Folks - take a second to study those Clinton-Obama 2008 numbers and this election and tell me what you see....  I know Al already sees it.

Democrats had better pay attention.  

Clintonistas bailed in large numbers?  That is hardly shocking.

Working-class revolt centered against those in power.

It will take some work to see the differential swings to see just who "revolted" the most, and by how much. What we do know, is that academic areas, and rich liberal areas, hardly revolted at all vis a vis Obama.  Some, but not much, relatively speaking, as to the rich liberal areas.

The New York Times has a swing map by town (from 2008 presidential) this morning:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/19/us/politics/massachusetts-election-map.html?hp

I don't want to get into another class-definition argument, but what the map suggests to me is that much as we like to pay attention to ye olde mill towns , the Dems have at least as much of a problem is in sort of lower-middle areas - the "exurbs" and the like, where people have never been too loyal to either party.

Yeah. Plymouth and Barnstaple (of which only the western portion swung big, not the cape) are among the biggest swings.

Though I see what Al is saying too, I suppose.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Something that would be interesting would be a swing map from the 2002 Gubernatorial election.

[The Mikado]

I still don't see why the Coakley campaign didn't turn this into their centerpiece: http://eagleionline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/scottbrownpicture.jpg

Do you want this man in the Senate?

NFSW, but only slightly.

[Eraserhead]

I thought Brown's speech was hilarious. He offered his daughters to the public as well. I imagine he was still a bit in shock that he actually won.

Hot.

I'll take the one on the left, please (edit: my left that is).

[Хahar 🤔]

NFSW, but only slightly.

Not for safe work?

[nclib]

Here's my table of vote by CD.  I allocated the vote for the 4 municipalities that are in two CDs (Boston, Fall River, Hanson, Wayland) by number of precincts per CD.  That may or may not be accurate.  If someone has a better formula for breaking the towns up, please let me know.

If I'm reading this correctly, MA-8 had the highest swing and MA-10 the lowest, which seems to contradict the county/town maps.

If anyone wants to compile Boston's results by CD, here is a list of precincts. (not sure if precinct data have come out yet)

I don't think the Republicans should get too worked up about gaining a House seat, not only are special elections quite different from general elections, but this was just one race (and involved a poor Democratic campaign) so it is not a given Mass. will continue to trend GOP.

[Sam Spade]

Something that would be interesting would be a swing map from the 2002 Gubernatorial election.

If I get you the swings, can you do a map?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Something that would be interesting would be a swing map from the 2002 Gubernatorial election.

If I get you the swings, can you do a map?

But of course.

[cinyc]

Here's my table of vote by CD.  I allocated the vote for the 4 municipalities that are in two CDs (Boston, Fall River, Hanson, Wayland) by number of precincts per CD.  That may or may not be accurate.  If someone has a better formula for breaking the towns up, please let me know.

If I'm reading this correctly, MA-8 had the highest swing and MA-10 the lowest, which seems to contradict the county/town maps.

If anyone wants to compile Boston's results by CD, here is a list of precincts. (not sure if precinct data have come out yet)

I don't think the Republicans should get too worked up about gaining a House seat, not only are special elections quite different from general elections, but this was just one race (and involved a poor Democratic campaign) so it is not a given Mass. will continue to trend GOP.

Swing from what?  The second to last column isn't swing - it's a proxy for change in TURNOUT from 2008 - (Total Votes unofficially cast in this election MINUS Total Votes unofficially cast in the 2008 presidential election, both based on Boston Globe data) divided by Total Votes unofficially cast in the 2008 presidential election.  The number in red on top is change in turnout from the statewide average.

The only swings have in my data are vs. Weld 1996 Senate in red and vs. Romney 2002 in black in the last column.

FYI - I still have to try to figure out why my actual turnout numbers aren't matching the Globe's - which is why I changed the data in the penultimate column.

Data from the 3rd, 4th, 8th and 9th districts are preliminary estimates, since I don't have precinct level data for Fall River (3/4) or Boston (8/9).

Data from the 5th, 7th and 10th is also a bit of an estimate due to 2 towns being split between them - Wayland (5/7) and Hanson (9/10).  But since the towns only have a handful of precincts, the results shouldn't change much.

[ajc0918]

Are campaign finance reports going to come out for this race? I'm curious to see Browns fundraising.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That Brown may have won the Frank district is pretty surprising. How are you splitting Boston, btw? Because it's pretty obvious that the parts in the 9th were better for Brown than the parts in the 8th.

[cinyc]

I can give you the Brown-McCain 2-party vote% swing data for each CD:

CD1:+14.70 points
CD2:+17.94
CD3:+18.58*
CD4:+14.99*
CD5:+16.69^
CD6:+16.52
CD7:+12.31^
CD8:+9.36**
CD9:+15.33**^
CD10:+15.90%^

*=Estimated using straight-line allocation of Fall River vote by number of precincts per CD
**=Estimated using straight-line allocation of Boston vote by number of precincts per CD
^=May be minor deviation due to a split of Hanson or Wayland between CDs

If anyone gets their hands on precinct-level data for Boston, Fall River, Hanson or Wayland, I'd love to see it.

[Torie]

Something that would be interesting would be a swing map from the 2002 Gubernatorial election.

If I get you the swings, can you do a map?

voila. At least it gives you an interactive map showing the Romney totals by town. But I guess you can get that here. Romney did much better in high income towns near Boston, but less well in working class places. He also did quite a bit  better in Boston.

[rbt48]

I don't think the Republicans should get too worked up about gaining a House seat, not only are special elections quite different from general elections, but this was just one race (and involved a poor Democratic campaign) so it is not a given Mass. will continue to trend GOP.
[/quote]
Well, it is probably unlikely that Republicans will win a single house seat this year in MA, unless a vacancy happens to occur, I would agree.  But, consider this.  If a Democrat won a special Senate election in Louisiana 52-47 and carried 4 of 7 districts, I would guess that Democrats might get a tad excited about their prospects for the fall elections.

[J. J.]

Well, it is probably unlikely that Republicans will win a single house seat this year in MA, unless a vacancy happens to occur, I would agree.  But, consider this.  If a Democrat won a special Senate election in Louisiana 52-47 and carried 4 of 7 districts, I would guess that Democrats might get a tad excited about their prospects for the fall elections.

I doubt if it will happen, but could you imaging Frank losing?

[cinyc]

That Brown may have won the Frank district is pretty surprising. How are you splitting Boston, btw? Because it's pretty obvious that the parts in the 9th were better for Brown than the parts in the 8th.

In the charts I posted,  pretty much straight line by dividing Boston vote by the number of precincts in CDs 8 and 9 - though I mistakenly got the precinct count wrong and allocated more of the vote to 8 than 9.  In the second iteration I've worked on, linerally by population in the precincts.  In the third iteration I'll be working on eventually, by Obama vs. McCain vote in each precinct.  

Do you have any other suggestion?  Has anyone ever calculated the Obama% for the Boston parts of CDs 8 and 9?

[ajc0918]

Browns finance person is reporting Brown raised $12 million, the most ever online by a Repub or Dem in mass.

[nclib]

cinyc,

I misread your chart. The second to last column looked like swing/trend since the difference between the two was similar to the projected swings discussed yesterday as a parameter for a Brown victory. MA-8 having the lowest swing and MA-3 having the highest makes more sense.

Well, it is probably unlikely that Republicans will win a single house seat this year in MA, unless a vacancy happens to occur, I would agree.  But, consider this.  If a Democrat won a special Senate election in Louisiana 52-47 and carried 4 of 7 districts, I would guess that Democrats might get a tad excited about their prospects for the fall elections.

Perhaps, but keep in mind that Louisiana has a history of electing Democratic Senators--in fact every election the past 100 years except Vitter in 2004.

Has anyone ever calculated the Obama% for the Boston parts of CDs 8 and 9?

According to SwingStateProject:

MA-8: 84.4%
MA-9: 67.6%

[rbt48]

cinyc,

I misread your chart. The second to last column looked like swing/trend since the difference between the two was similar to the projected swings discussed yesterday as a parameter for a Brown victory. MA-8 having the lowest swing and MA-3 having the highest makes more sense.

Well, it is probably unlikely that Republicans will win a single house seat this year in MA, unless a vacancy happens to occur, I would agree.  But, consider this.  If a Democrat won a special Senate election in Louisiana 52-47 and carried 4 of 7 districts, I would guess that Democrats might get a tad excited about their prospects for the fall elections.

Perhaps, but keep in mind that Louisiana has a history of electing Democratic Senators--in fact every election the past 100 years except Vitter in 2004.

True enough.  But in today's Louisiana, I think that Democrats would be hopeful were this to happen.  Also, in any of her wins, I have to wonder if Landrieu topped 50% in any CD but the New Orleans 2nd.

[cinyc]

cinyc,

I misread your chart. The second to last column looked like swing/trend since the difference between the two was similar to the projected swings discussed yesterday as a parameter for a Brown victory. MA-8 having the lowest swing and MA-3 having the highest makes more sense.

Well, it is probably unlikely that Republicans will win a single house seat this year in MA, unless a vacancy happens to occur, I would agree.  But, consider this.  If a Democrat won a special Senate election in Louisiana 52-47 and carried 4 of 7 districts, I would guess that Democrats might get a tad excited about their prospects for the fall elections.

Perhaps, but keep in mind that Louisiana has a history of electing Democratic Senators--in fact every election the past 100 years except Vitter in 2004.

True enough.  But in today's Louisiana, I think that Democrats would be hopeful were this to happen.  Also, in any of her wins, I have to wonder if Landrieu topped 50% in any CD but the New Orleans 2nd.

Louisiana is one of the good states that provides all precinct-level data on the Internet. 

By my quick math, Landrieu won CDs 2, 3, 4 and 6 in 2008.  Her Republican opponent won CDs 1, 5 and 7. 

CD 1: 41.96%
CD 2: 81.44%
CD 3: 53.98%
CD 4: 50.25%
CD 5: 47.18%
CD 6: 51.19%
CD 7: 48.86%

The Landrieu name means something in Louisiana.

Nore that Louisiana doesn't provide precinct level splits for absentees, so I imputed them assuming they fell proportionately in each CD as the rest of the vote, following swing state project's method for the 2008 presidential election.  Regardless of method, there weren't enough absentees in split Parishes to flip CD 4, anyway.