MA Senate - Special Election Results thread

[Brittain33]

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.

Note that the northern of the two deep-blue areas in southeastern Mass. is a) traditionally Republican-leaning territory that was b) home to Shannon O'Brien.

[Brittain33]

Doesn't Lawrence have a lot of Cambodians or something?

That's Lowell you have in mind.

[Brittain33]

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.

[Brittain33]

So is the Friends-and-Neighbours effect in northern Berkshire county; note that it was only the area around North Adams that swung strongly to Coakley. That area is surrounded by towns that O'Brien did better in. Hilarious.

It's worse than that. The town in the northwest corner, Williamstown, swung on the college-town-pro-Obama swing (see Amherst, Northampton, Cambridge, and Somerville), not the friends-and-neighbors swing. The other two towns have a combined total of <2,000 people. North Adams and Williamstown have a severe town-and-gown discrepancy.

[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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So is the Friends-and-Neighbours effect in northern Berkshire county; note that it was only the area around North Adams that swung strongly to Coakley. That area is surrounded by towns that O'Brien did better in. Hilarious.

It's worse than that. The town in the northwest corner, Williamstown, swung on the college-town-pro-Obama swing (see Amherst, Northampton, Cambridge, and Somerville), not the friends-and-neighbors swing. The other two towns have a combined total of <2,000 people. North Adams and Williamstown have a severe town-and-gown discrepancy.

Hahaha. Brilliant.

Btw, why do you think things turned out the way they did?

[Brittain33]

Btw, why do you think things turned out the way they did?

I have no special insight to this race. The places I live, socialize, and to some extent, work were not part of the swing to Brown. I have my thoughts and do know plenty of people who switched from Obama to Brown, and certainly I was part of the people not seeing Coakley on tv and taking the race for granted until early January, but I can't offer any different insights.

[nclib]

Here are Boston's precinct results, so cinyc can finish the CD data for MA-8 and MA-9.

[ajc0918]

Here are Boston's precinct results, so cinyc can finish the CD data for MA-8 and MA-9.

Wow, Brown only got 3.98% in Ward 14.
What's up with this area?

[cinyc]

Here are Boston's precinct results, so cinyc can finish the CD data for MA-8 and MA-9.

Thanks.  Now if we can find precinct-level results for Fall River and the two small split towns, I could finalize the CD count.  The MA SOS has the official final town results on his website here.

[cinyc]

Here are Boston's precinct results, so cinyc can finish the CD data for MA-8 and MA-9.

Wow, Brown only got 3.98% in Ward 14.
What's up with this area?

Brown improved on McCain's 1.76% in Ward 14.  It's the most Democrat-leaning ward in Boston.  I think it's North Dorchester and Mattapan.  

The white population in North Dorchester has been in decline for decades.  Mattapan is heavily African American.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Here are Boston's precinct results, so cinyc can finish the CD data for MA-8 and MA-9.

Wow, Brown only got 3.98% in Ward 14.
What's up with this area?

Brown improved on McCain's 1.76% in Ward 14.  It's the most Democrat-leaning ward in Boston.  I think it's North Dorchester and Mattapan. 

The white population in North Dorchester has been in decline for decades.  Mattapan is heavily African American.

I thought that Roxbury was the most Democratic part of Boston...then again it is right next door to Dorchester and Mattapan.

[cinyc]

Here are Boston's precinct results, so cinyc can finish the CD data for MA-8 and MA-9.

Wow, Brown only got 3.98% in Ward 14.
What's up with this area?

Brown improved on McCain's 1.76% in Ward 14.  It's the most Democrat-leaning ward in Boston.  I think it's North Dorchester and Mattapan. 

The white population in North Dorchester has been in decline for decades.  Mattapan is heavily African American.

I thought that Roxbury was the most Democratic part of Boston...then again it is right next door to Dorchester and Mattapan.

You're right.  Roxbury Ward 12 voted slightly more for Obama than the 14th - McCain only received 1.44% of the vote there.    Brown also did slightly worse there than in the 14th - 3.56% versus 3.89%.   Pretty comparable - but Roxbury Ward 12 is even more Democrat-leaning than Ward 14.

[cinyc]

My Boston CD-8 versus Boston CD-9 projection wasn't bad.  I nailed the percentages within two points, but underestimated the CD-9 turnout by about 6,300 votes.

Boston CD-8

Projected:
Brown 25,023 (24.72%)
Coakley 75,274 (74.36%)   
Kennedy 933   (0.92%)
Total 101,231

Actual:
Brown 22,115 (23.19%)
Coakley 72,210 (75.72%)
Kennedy 935   (0.98%)
Other 100   (0.10%)
Total 95,360

Boston CD-9

Projected:
Brown 21,445 (41.21%)
Coakley 30,015 (57.68%)
Kennedy 580   (1.11%)
Total 52,039

Actual:
Brown 24,460 (41.85%)   
Coakley 33,334 (57.03%)
Kennedy 583   (1.00%)
Other 73           (0.12%)
Total 58,450

Here's the updated CD chart to include actual precinct-level results from Boston (CDs 8 & 9) and Wayland (CDs 5 & 7).  I'm still using projections for Hanson (CDs 9 & 10) and Fall River (CDs 3 & 4) - I don't have precinct-level results for those municipalities.