MA Senate - Special Election Results thread

[Sam Spade]

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.

[Sam Spade]

Margin will end up being slightly under 5%.

[Sam Spade]

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.

I'm not surprised either.  Are you?

But when a Republican candidate wins Bristol by 10, alarm bells start going off.  Maybe this is just Coakley.  But I wouldn't bet on it.

[Sam Spade]

Cambridge: 27,268 Coakley, 4,921 Brown

[Sam Spade]

Torie - Why would there be any movement against Obama among liberals and college towns as opposed to any other area in the country?  I would argue that this is the group that identifies with him the most, moreso than even the blacks, because he is one of them, not the latter (although their skin color may be the same).

It's like saying there would be major movement in west Texas against Bush in 2004.

[Sam Spade]

I'm watching the FOX rerun of earlier - I just saw (for the 2nd time) Ayla Brown (Scott's daughter) pull a marker out of her bra to sign a picture.

I don't think that infra dig myself. Some of you youngs are just so straight laced.  Where did the late 60's go?  Long time passing.

Agreed.  Also agree with jmfcst on the hotness of the daughter in black (and at least it's less strange coming from me  )

[Sam Spade]

Request - Can I get a county/town template for Massachusetts?  I'd like to at least make a county map tonight..  Thanks!

[Sam Spade]

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

[Sam Spade]

NCLIB:

Mostest swing

North Attleborough 22.5 - Historically, a jewelry/button manufacturing town
Plainville 21.8 - Used to be part of Wrentham many moons ago.
Southbridge 21.3 - Mill town.
Wrentham 20.9 - already pointed out
Athol 20.7 - Another mill town, though more into the manufacture of tools in later years.
Tolland 20.7 - Yet another mill town.

Lowest swing

Cummington 0.7 - Not in Berkshire county, but I think of it as part of the Berkshires.  Small town.  Rachel Maddow lives here.
Pelham 1.9 - Same.  Median household income is over $60,000, meaning...
Williamstown 2.2 - Berkshires along the Vermont/New York border.  Williams College is here.  This is also historically a mill town, however, so not monolithic.
Leverett 2.2 - Median household income over $60K.  Used to be a mill town, of course, too.  Close to Springfield.
Shutesbury 2.5 - Ditto to Leverett (same area), but the University of Massachusetts is nearby and I think a good amount of its growth in population has occurred because of that (and now that I think of it, probably Leverett too.

[Sam Spade]

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.

The probable answer is that I just miscopied somewhere.  No biggie.  Will  correct later.

[Sam Spade]

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.

You see, this is the reason why I say Brown has the charm and likeability that Romney doesn't.

During a victory speech, he goes up and says something that causes his daughters to be completely embarassed by saying they're "available".  This is typical Dad behavior - ask any normal woman and they'll tell you that their Dad has done something that they felt completely embarassed about at the time.

Romney, on the other hand, talks about going on trips with his family and putting the dog or the roof of the car.  This is rather strange - and most people would feel likewise.  Makes him look weird.

He's got promise - we'll see in a couple of years whether this is just luck and whether he's ready for the big time.

[Sam Spade]

dang, his daughters are good looking

I totally just sent some Facebook friend requests.

On the serious note, congratulations to Scott Brown on a perfectly executed political campaign. Two weeks ago when Rasmussen had him 50-41 down, that poll seemed too generous to him and yet he's now a US Senator-elect. At least once the old adage about favorite being vulnerable if he/she can't clear 50% in polls proved to be true.

Of course, Brown was helped by Coakley going auto-pilot too early and by general voter dissatisfaction with Washington Democrats, but still he deserves a huge hat tip. Whoever managed his campaign should be getting calls from Republican 2012 contenders ASAP.

His Campaign was a Romney operation. They are already spoken for.

If Romney was the real genius that everyone thinks he is, he would be running campaigns, not be running as a candidate in a campaign.

[Sam Spade]

Thread has been unstickied

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

[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?

[Sam Spade]

Sent Al the 2010 vs. 2002 county swings, so hopefully we'll have a nice, cute town map to examine soon enough. 

[Sam Spade]

2010 Senate vs. 2002 Governor (i.e. Romney swing) stuff I sent you, right?

It's actually more fascinating in map form than just on spreadsheet.

[Sam Spade]

What is fascinating about the pretty map above, is the size of the percentage range, from -30 to +40. Wow.

The map is of change in total margin from 2002, not change in Brown percentage vs. Romney percentage.  For example, Brown's biggest increase was in Achushnet, Bristol County - a suburb of New Bedford.  Romney lost it 64-36 (-28).  Brown won it 57-43 (+14).   Total net swing was 40.  But Brown improved on the percentage Romney received by 20 points.

McCain lost Acushnet 60-40 (-20) and Weld lost it 66-34 (-32), so there was a huge overall swing there from the Democrats.

OK, -15 to +20. That is still quite a range.

With some natural/obvious exceptions, I would say Brown's method of victory more mirrors Cellucci 1998 than Romney 2002.  Still, this is an excellent comparison map IMHO.

The real fun is comparing Weld 1990 to Brown 2010... 

[Sam Spade]

Oh Lawrence had a smaller swing to Brown than the surrounding areas, and I got it reversed?  Maybe if so it is due to the minority vote. Doesn't Lawrence have a lot of Cambodians or something?

I seem to remember it having more minorities, especially Hispanics, than the other type towns Al is referencing.

Turnout was some of the worst compared to 2002 in state also, just FWIW, at only 86.93% of 2002. (statewide was 102.50% of 2002, Essex, as a whole, was only 99.67%)

[Sam Spade]

Scott Brown raised $13 Million and has $4 Million cash on hand.

According to the Boston Globe Scott Brown ended up raising $13M and has an astonishing $4M on hand with two years left to pad that amount before coming up for reelection.
Brown raised so much late money - about $1 million a day via the Internet at the end - that he couldn't spend it all. He ended the campaign with an estimated $4 million in his campaign account, spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said. The campaign's original budget was $1.2 million, but it ultimately raised about $13 million. With a flush campaign account, Brown will enter office in a stronger position to defend against an almost certain challenge in 2012.
The Republican insurgent outspent Coakley, roughly $8.7 million to $5.1 million during the six weeks following the primaries, according to estimates provided by the campaigns. Coakley also received help from the national and state Democratic Party committees, who spent about $4.3 million, mostly on advertising and all of it in the last week, to prop up her wilting candidacy. Their GOP counterparts did not pay for any ads to help Brown. Outside interest groups also played a major role, with seven organizations spending nearly $2.7 million to help Brown, and five others spending more than $1.8 million on Coakley's behalf.

I knew they were raising some serious cash in my conversations with Beth Lindstrom and Priscilla Ruzzo. But this is astonishing.  The discipline this campaign had in keeping the amount of money a secret was amazing.  Martha didn't know what she was going up against. 

http://redmassgroup.com/diary/6998/brown-has-4m-cash-on-hand

It demonstrates the potential the internet has for fundraising.

Agree very much. 

Personally, I think Scott Brown may have taken the Dean/Obama/Paul internet fundraising model.  Raising whatever the number was, $10 million in 15 days, is rather impressive.

[Sam Spade]

For a little while, I'm going to be posting interesting facts about this race and its comparison to other races, both recent and past...

Today's interesting observation:

Turnout is often important...

There were 93 towns/cities where McCain performed 10%+ his final statewide total of 35.99% (45.99% or more) and 59 towns/cities where Obama performed 10%+ his final statewide total of 61.80% (71.80% or more).

2010 Turnout statewide vs. 2008 Presidential election: 72.99%
Turnout in McCain-strong towns/cities: 77.66%
Turnout in Obama-strong towns/cities:  66.57%

[Sam Spade]

Personally, I think Scott Brown may have taken the Dean/Obama/Paul internet fundraising model.  Raising whatever the number was, $10 million in 15 days, is rather impressive.

Whichever model he had--and his campaign surely knew what they were doing--he had a healthy dose of the Joe Wilson/Elwyn Tinklenberg fundraising model, which meant simply being the right man at the right time to harvest money from a focused and frustrated national constituency. Brown promoted himself heavily on media outlets (Fox News, talk radio) and had no competition for money from the many Republicans who wanted in on this fight, right now.

No disagreement there, but as we agree you have to know what you're doing and, more importantly, have the apparatus in place in order to take advantage of such situations.

Good planning = being able to take advantage of good circumstances.  Same thing applies to the others I mentioned, of course.