Boston 2009 General Election: Complete Numbers – Turnout, Mayor, City Council

Here  is my summary of the Boston 2009 General election results.  I include analysis of the turnout, Mayor’s race, and at-large City Council race.  I summarize the results from a neighborhood perspective, not by wards, since almost everyone can identify with a neighborhood name more easily than a ward number.

The Turnout:

Here’s a link to the turnout counts and rates by neighborhood:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tizoE2JMGeIrVUBMilOXerw&single=true&gid=0&output=html

- The overall turnout was 111K voters.  This is 39% of active voters and 31% of all voters (active + inactive).  This is a 29K increase (36%) over the 2009 Primary, and a 14K increase (14%) over the 2005 General.

- Turnout had the usual distribution of whiter neighborhoods turning out better than liberal-voting and non-white neighborhoods.   Turnout was highest in Readville (62%), southern-white Dorchester (56%), and West Roxbury (54%).  Turnout was lowest in Allston (21%), Fenway (25%), and Back Bay (27%).  Non-white neighborhood turnout was in the mid- to high 30s%.

- There was a 10 percentage point increase in turnout from the Primary to the General (39% vs. 28%).   The increase was larger in the whitest neighborhoods.  The biggest increases were in Readville (+17 points) ,West Roxbury (+15 points), and Charlestown,  Beacon Hill, southern-white Dorchester (all +13 points).  The lowest increases were in Chinatown (+5 points), Allston (+6 points), and Brighton, Grove Hall (+8 points).

• This is somewhat surprising, since there is generally a “liberal/non-white boost” in the General compared to the Primary.  I expected the increases in the white-liberal and non-white neighborhoods to be relatively larger.   Maybe Flaherty was better at turning out his base here, and/or maybe Menino was trying to pull out more votes in the white neighborhoods???
• The South Boston (Flaherty’s home) change was up 10 percentage points to 45%, only 6 points above the city average.  The Readville (Menino’s home) change was 17 points to 62%, or 23 points above the city-wide average.   Perhaps some South Boston voters were not too excited by the Flaherty-Yoon alliance and stayed home???

- The chart has columns for both percentage point change and percent change for the 2009 General vs. 2009 Primary and the 2009 General vs. 2005 General.  To clarify – a neighborhood with 1000 voters that goes from a 10% turnout to a 15% turnout would have a 50% increase and a 5 percentage point increase.  A different neighborhood also with 1000 voters that goes from a 50% turnout to a 55% turnout would have a 10% increase and a 5 percentage point increase.   I like using the percentage point number because in the above 2 examples, the increase in actual voter turnout is the same (50 voters) and  the percentage point change is the same.  But if you look at only the % turnout change (50% vs. 10%), you might think there is a much bigger change going on in the lower-turnout neighborhood.

- This was the most contested mayor’s race in Boston since 1993, when Menino was elected to an open seat after Ray Flynn left for the Vatican.  The turnout was 112K in the primary and 118K in the general.

The Mayor’s Race:

Here’s a link to the mayoral candidate results by neighborhood:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdC1ocG5lWS1BRTI1dkx6YU82bjZJdXc&hl=en

- Menino beats Flaherty 57% to 42%, a gap of 15 points.  The gap in the primary was 26 points (50% vs. 24%).  So Flaherty closed the gap by 12 points.  I’ll explain below how did he did that.

- Menino did best in his home turf of Hyde Park and Readville with 75% of the vote.  He also did well in  the least-white neighborhoods like Mattapan and parts of Dorchester (90+% non-white population) with 70% – 75% of the votes there.  He also did well in large neighborhoods like Roxbury (67%), Roslindale (62%), East Boston (60%), West Roxbury (58%),

- Flaherty was strongest in the whitest neighborhoods.  Outside of South Boston (69%), he got 50% – 55% of the vote in Charlestown, and the white parts of Dorchester.   He got less than 20% – 30% in the least-white neighborhoods.  He also did very well in the white, liberal-voting neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain, South End, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill with 50% – 55% of the vote.

So what happened between the Primary and the General?  Where did the Yoon votes go?

• Menino gained 6.6 percentage points (57% vs. 50%) while Flaherty gained 18.3 percentage points (42% vs. 24%) in the General vs. Primary.   So Flaherty improved by 12 percentage points more than Menino city-wide.
• The best improvements for Flaherty vs. Menino came from white-liberal voting neighborhoods like the Fenway (26 points), Jamaica Plain (23 points), Allston and Back Bay (22 points), Beacon Hill (20 points), and the South End (18%).   These neighborhoods are where Yoon did best in the Primary.
• The worst improvements for Flaherty vs. Menino came from Readville (0 points) and Hyde Park (4 points) which are Menino’s home neighborhoods, West Roxbury (2 points), South Boston (2 points), and southern-white Dorchester (4 points).
• The non-white neighborhoods came out in the middle for Flaherty vs. Menino, in the 10 – 16 point range.

So it looks like the Flaherty-Yoon ticket idea had the result of:

• Boosting Flaherty a lot in the white-liberal-voting neighborhoods by giving better him “liberal credentials”.
• Didn’t make much difference in the non-white neighborhoods.
• Hurting Flaherty in the white-conservative-voting neighborhoods.
• My experience is that when a candidate tries to expand beyond the base, he/she risks alienating that base, which often results in lower-than-expected turnout and/or % of the vote in the base.
• The 29K new voters in the General vs. Primary came somewhat more from white-conservative-voting neighborhoods than I expected.   If I had to guess, I’d say it was the Menino machine pulling out voters there, not the Flaherty machine.  Any insiders know the strategy?

The City Council At-Large Race:

Here’s a quick summary of the results.  The top 4 candidates are elected.

City Council  At-Large Candidate	2009     General   Votes	2009 Primary Votes	2009 General  % Vote	2009 Primary % Vote	Candidate Race/Ethnicity	Home    Neighborhood
Connolly	51,308	35,115	46%	43%	White – Irish	West Roxbury
Murphy	50,962	30,311	46%	38%	White – Irish	Hyde Park
Arroyo, Jr.	45,099	25,821	41%	32%	Latino – Puerto Rican	Jamaica Plain
Pressley	41,847	16,846	38%	21%	African-American	Back Bay
Jackson	30,173	12,520	27%	15%	African-American	Roxbury
Kenneally	24,215	12,632	22%	15%	White – Irish	East Boston
Gonzalez	18,297	10,108	16%	12%	Latino – Puerto Rican	Hyde Park
Bennett	16,817	10,519	15%	13%	White	West End

- These percent results are different from what is published by the Election Department and the newspapers.  The way they do it is:  100 voters cast 300 votes (a voter can vote for up to 4 candidates) for various candidates.  Candidate X gets 30 votes.  The city calculates it as Candidate X got 10% of the vote (30 of 300 votes cast).  I calculate it as Candidate X getting 30% of the vote (30 votes from 100 people turning out).  My method is the way it gets calculated in all other elections, so it’s much more relevant when comparing with other election results.

- The order for the top 4 candidates stayed the same from the Primary to the General.  Connolly beat Murphy by only 346 votes for first place, after beating him by 4,804 votes in the Primary.  The only order changes were:   Jackson went from 6th to 5th, Gonzalez went from 8th to 7th, Kenneally from 5th to 6th, and Bennett from 7th to 8th.

- Pressley had the best improvement (17%) from the Primary to the General.  Jackson was next with a 12% jump.  Arroyo, Murphy, and Kenneally were next with 7-9% jumps.  Connolly, Gonzalez, and Bennett were up only 2-4%.

As in the past few elections, the 4th place finisher gets in the high-30%s  of the vote.  That seems to be the magic number to win.

Results by Neighborhood:

Here’s a link to the candidate results by neighborhood:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t3l6oAMckxpzAP4PIhuYtLw&single=true&gid=0&output=html

As usual, white candidates do best in the whitest neighborhoods and non-white candidates do best in white-liberal and non-white neighborhoods.  The % white voting-age-population (from the 2000 Census) of the neighborhood is included in every chart to make this clear.  So it’s often the relative turnout of each neighborhood that plays a major role in the final results.

You can look at the chart at the link above to see all the details.  The precinct-by-precinct results are also available at a link below.  Here are some general observations:

• Connolly’s best results (46% citywide) came from West Roxbury (66% – his home neighborhood), Charlestown (63%), southern-white Dorchester (60%).    His worst results came from Roxbury, Grove Hall, Blue Hill Ave. / Washington St. Corridor (17% – 19%).  He also got mid-50s% in white neighborhoods like West End, Brighton, Beacon Hill, and Back Bay.

• Murphy’s best results (46% citywide) came from Readville (69%), south-white Dorchester (63%) and South Boston (61%).  He did worst non-white neighborhoods like Roxbury, non-white parts of Dorchester (25% – 28%).  Murphy did a lot better than Connolly in these non-white neighborhoods.

• Arroyo’s best results (41% citywide) came from Jamaica Plain (67%), Fenway (52%), Roxbury (51%), and Grove Hall (50%).  He did worst in South Boston (20%), southern-white Dorchester  (27%) and Charlestown (28%).

• Pressley’s best results (38% citywide) came from Melville/Ashmont (58%), Mattapan (54%), Roxbury (50%), Blue Hill Ave. / Washington St. Corridor (50%).   She did worst in East Boston (15%), South Boston (18%), Readville (20%), and Charlestown (23%).

• Jackon’s best results (27% citywide) came  from Roxbury (56%), Mattapan (53%), non-white parts of Dorchester (51% – 56%).  He did worst in South Boston (9%), East Boston (10%), Readville (11%), and Charlestown (12%).

• Kenneally’s best results (22% citywide) came from West Roxbury (44%), East Boston (43%), and South Boston (40%).  He did worst in Mattapan, Roxbury, and non-white parts of Dorchester (5% – 9%).

• Gonzalez’ best results  (16% citywide) came from Jamaica Plain (28%), Mission Hill (26%), and Hyde Park (25%).  He did worst in Charlestown (9%), South Boston (9%), West Roxbury (10%), and southern-white Dorchester (10%).

• Bennett’s best results (15% citywide) came from West End (39%), South Boston (29%), Charlestown (27%) and the North End (27%).  He did worst in Jamaica Plain (8%) and least-white neighborhoods like Roxubry, Mattapan, non-white Dorchester (5% – 8%).

Candidate Result Changes from 2009 Primary to 2009 General:

Here’s a link to a chart showing how each candidate’s vote changed from the Primary to the General:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t3l6oAMckxpzAP4PIhuYtLw&single=true&gid=3&output=html

- Example:   if a candidate went from 30% in the Primary to 40% in the General, there was a 10 percentage point increase.  For the 8 candidates, the overall increases ranged from +2 points to +17 points.   For individual neighborhoods, candidate results varied from -4 points to +31 points.

- The non-white candidates gained a lot more votes than the white candidates in the General vs. the Primary (+17, +12, +9, and +4 points for non-white candidates vs. +9, +6, +2, and +2 points for the white candidates).  This is the “liberal /non-white surge” that we often see.  It’s complicated to compare it to other years since there have typically been only 1 or 2 non-white candidates in the general.

- Some highlights:

• Pressley had big gains in Mattapan (31 points), non-white parts of Dorchester (22 – 25 points), Roxbury (23 points).  She also had big gains in neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain, Allston, Brighton, and Hyde Park (21 – 22 points).
• Jackson had gains of 18 – 25 points in very non-white neighborhoods.
• I’d guess that the Jackson and Pressley gains were due to them having low name recognition in the primary as first-time candidates.
• Arroyo Jr. started out with better name recognition (thanks to Arroyo Sr.), so he did far better in the primary, and still had a decent 9 point gain in the General.
• Murphy’s 9 point gain is somewhat surprising since he started with good name recognition as a 12 year incumbent city councilor.  His gains were highest in the Back  Bay, Beacon Hill, Fenway and West End (14 – 16 points).  He also had a good gain in Mattapan (14 points).  He had the lowest gains in the white-conservative-voting neighborhoods.   I don’t have a great explanation for this.
• Of the 7 candidates who didn’t make it to the General, the 2 white candidates got 9,780 primary votes and the 5 non-white candidates got  29,994 primary votes.  So there were a lot more potential votes going to the remaining non-white candidates.
• For lots of reasons, the power of incumbency made it hard for the 2 incumbents, Connolly and Murphy, to lose under any turnout scenario.

Votes per Ballot (a.k.a. bullet voting):

- Here’s a link to the VOTES PER BALLOT tab with a chart that shows the average # of city council candidates (up to 4)  that a voter voted for, broken down by neighborhood.  Using only one of your four votes is referred to as “bullet voting”.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t3l6oAMckxpzAP4PIhuYtLw&single=true&gid=4&output=html

- A voter casts one ballot and can vote for up to 4 city council candidates in the at-large race.  In the past 10-20 years, voters typically use an average of about 3 of their votes per ballot.

- In the General, voters used an average of 2.5 votes per ballot.  This is up from 2.4 votes per ballot in the primary.   The neighborhood pattern in the General is similar to that in the Primary, where the whitest neighborhoods are a few tenths of a vote above the city average and the least-white neighborhoods  are a few tenths of a vote below the city average.  The white-liberal-voting neighborhoods are also a few tenths above the city-wide average.

- Bullet voting actually works against non-white neighborhoods’ clout.  There are less votes per voter coming out of those neighborhoods, compared to the whitest neighborhoods.  Given that there were 4 strong non-white candidates, there was no good reason for this to happen.   A neighborhood using an average of 2.3 votes per voter vs. a neighborhood using an average of 2.7 votes per voter has the same affect as decreasing the turnout by 15% (.4 divided by 2.7), or for example, reducing a turnout of 40% effectively to 35%.

Strategy for future City Council candidates:

The opportunity is there for future open seats to be won by liberal / non-white candidates.  The winning strategy for them is:

• Lots of quality candidates producing very-contested elections that generate a high city-wide turnout.
• Concentrate campaign resources in the liberal-voting / non-white base to generate high name recognition and turnout.
• Discourage bullet voting.  Encourage voters to use 3 or 4 of their 4 votes per ballot.
• Ongoing demographic and voter registration changes in the city are shrinking the white-conservative base.
• High-turnout elections in even-year state and federal elections increase registered voter count and increase the pool of frequent voters.

Get all the raw data here:

- In the interest of making public records more public and elections more transparent, here’s a link to the raw precinct results in a spreadsheet format.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdFVCVUtraVpJVTl4dERoSXY2cWtPVEE&hl=en

- Here are the raw results from the Boston Election Department, as of 11/4/2009:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/elections/currentelections/pdfs/MunicipalElection3Nov09UnofficialResults.pdf

Notes:

- % Turnouts are based on the active voter counts, unless otherwise noted, instead of the total voter count (voter status = active + inactive).  The inactive voters are usually 20%-25% of the total voter count and represent voters who are mostly gone, but for a variety of reasons, can’t be officially purged from the voter list for 3 years.  If I included the inactive voters in the % turnout calculations, it artificially drives down the real % turnout, since the total voter count is padded with non-existent voters.  In Boston, the inactive voters as a group typically vote at one-tenth to one-twentieth the rate of active voters.

-  Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding issues.  Percentage point comparisons may appear off due to data after decimal point.

- Since Dorchester is by far the biggest neighborhood (66K total voters) and has diverse sub-neighborhoods, I also break out those sub-neighborhood totals.

First look at Boston 2009 General Turnout – Turnout and Mayor’s Race

Here  is my first take on the results of the turnout and Mayor’s race in the Boston 2009 general election.  I summarize the results from a neighborhood perspective, not by wards, since almost everyone can identify with a neighborhood name more easily than a ward number.

I’ll have a city council at-large results summary tomorrow.

The Turnout:

Here’s a link to the turnout counts and rates by neighborhood.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tizoE2JMGeIrVUBMilOXerw&single=true&gid=0&output=html

- The overall turnout was 111K voters.  This is 39% of active voters and 31% of all voters (active + inactive).  This is a 29K increase (36%) over the 2009 Primary, and a 14K increase (14%) over the 2005 General.

- Turnout had the usual distribution of whiter neighborhoods turning out better than liberal-voting and non-white neighborhoods.   Turnout was highest in Readville (62%), southern-white Dorchester (56%), and West Roxbury (54%).  Turnout was lowest in Allston (21%), Fenway (25%), and Back Bay (27%).

- There was a 10 percentage point increase in turnout from the Primary to the General (39% vs. 28%).   The increase was larger in the whitest neighborhoods.  The biggest increases were in Readville (+17 points) ,West Roxbury (+15 points), and Charlestown,  Beacon Hill, southern-white Dorchester (all +13 points).  The lowest increases were in Chinatown(+5 points), Allston (+6 points), and Brighton, Grove Hall (+8 points).

• This is somewhat surprising, since there is generally a “liberal/non-white surge” in the General compared to the Primary.  I expected the increases in the white-liberal and non-white neighborhoods to be relatively larger.   Maybe Flaherty was better at turning out his base here, and/or maybe Menino was trying to pull out more votes in the white neighborhoods???
• The South Boston (Flaherty’s home) change was 10 percentage points.  The Readville (Menino’s home) was 17 points.   Perhaps some South Boston voters were not too excited by the Flaherty-Yoon alliance???

- The chart has columns for both percentage point change and percent change for the 2009 General vs. 2009 Primary and the 2009 General vs. 2005 General.  To clarify – a neighborhood with 1000 voters that goes from a 10% turnout to a 15% turnout would have a 50% increase and a 5 percentage point increase.  A different neighborhood also with 1000 that goes from a 50% turnout to a 55% turnout would have a 10% increase and a 5 percentage point increase.   I like using the percentage point number because in the above 2 examples, the increase in actual voter turnout is the same and  the percentage point change is the same.  But if you look at only the % turnout change (50% vs. 10%), you might think there is a much bigger change going on in the lower-turnout neighborhood.

- This was the most contested mayor’s race in Boston since 1993, when Menino was elected to an open seat after Ray Flynn left.  The turnout was 112K in the primary and 118K in the general.

The Mayor’s Race:

Here’s a link to the mayoral candidate results by neighborhood.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdC1ocG5lWS1BRTI1dkx6YU82bjZJdXc&hl=en

- Menino beats Flaherty 57% to 42%, a gap of 15 points.  The gap in the primary was 26 points (50% vs. 24%).  So Flaherty closed the gap by 12 points.  I’ll explain below how did he did that.

- Menino did best in his home turf of Hyde Park and Readville with 75% of the vote.  He also did well in  the least-white neighborhoods like Mattapan and parts of Dorchester (90+% non-white population) with 70% – 75% of the votes there.  He also did well in large neighborhoods like Roxbury (67%), Roslindale (62%), East Boston (60%), West Roxbury (58%),

- Flaherty was strongest in the whitest neighborhoods.  Outside of South Boston (69%), he got 50% – 55% of the vote in Charlestown, and the white parts of Dorchester.   He got less than 20% – 30% in the least-white neighborhoods.  He also did very well in the white, liberal-voting neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain, South End, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill with 50% – 55% of the vote.

So what happened between the Primary and the General?  Where did the Yoon votes go?

• Menino gained 6.6 percentage points (57% vs. 50%) while Flaherty gained 18.3 percentage points (42% vs. 24%) in the General vs. Primary.   So Flaherty improved by 12 percentage points more than Menino city-wide.
• The best increases for Flaherty vs. Menino came from white-liberal voting neighborhoods like Fenway (26 points), Jamaica Plain (23 points), Allston / Back Bay (22 points), Beacon Hill (20 points), and South End (18%).   These neighborhoods are where Yoon did best in the Primary.
• The worst improvements for Flaherty vs. Menino came from his Menino’s home neighborhood – Readville (0 points) and Hyde Park (4 points), and also West Roxbury (2 points), South Boston (2 points), and southern-white Dorchester (4 points).
• The non-white neighborhoods came out in the middle for Flaherty vs. Menino, in the 10 – 16 point range.

So it looks like the Flaherty-Yoon ticket idea had the result of:

• Boosting Flaherty in the white-liberal-voting neighborhoods by giving better him “liberal credentials”.
• Didn’t make much difference in the non-white neighborhoods.
• Hurting Flaherty in the white-conservative-voting neighborhoods.
• The 29K new voters in the General vs. Primary came somewhat more from white-conservative-voting neighborhoods than I expected.   If I had to guess, I’d say it was the Menino machine pulling out voters there, not the Flaherty machine.  Any insiders know the strategy?
• All make sense??

Notes:

- % Turnouts based on active voter count unless otherwise noted.

-  Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding issues.

- In the interest of making public records more public and elections more transparent, here’s a link to the raw precinct results in a spreadsheet format.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdFVCVUtraVpJVTl4dERoSXY2cWtPVEE&hl=en

- Here are the raw results from the Boston Election Department, as of 11/4/2009:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/elections/currentelections/pdfs/MunicipalElection3Nov09UnofficialResults.pdf

Initial Boston 2009 General Election Results

Detailed precinct results are usually  available sometime Wednesday morning after Election Day.  Once I receive them, I’ll start my analysis.  The Boston Election Department does not release the data in spreadsheet format, so it requires lots of data entry (254 precincts times the number of candidates).

I hope to have something ready on Wednesday afternoon and full results by sometime on Thursday.   In the meantime, the unofficial results are available from the city at this link:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/elections/currentelections/default.asp

Anyone who has early precinct results can speed up the process by emailing  them to me at:

BobLeLievre@gmail.com

Boston 2009 Primary Election – Complete Summary of the Numbers

Here  is my take on the results of the 2009 primary election in Boston.  I like to look at them from a neighborhood perspective, not by wards, since almost everyone can identify with a neighborhood name more easily than a ward number.   Neighborhoods tend to be more homogeneous in voting patterns and demographics (the book “The clustering of America” explains this well) than wards.  There are lots of numbers here, and since charts don’t format well here, I have links to public Google Docs of all my data:

The Turnout:

Here’s a link to the turnout counts and rates by neighborhood.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdDJzcG1mZnd3SF

- The overall turnout was about 82K voters (28% of active voters).  This is a big jump, about double, from the last 2 mayoral primaries – 41K in 2005 and 43K in 2001.  The main reason was that this primary was far more contested than in 2005 (Maura Hennigan was the challenger) and 2001 (Peggy Davis-Mullen was the challenger).   The moral of the story –  serious candidates and contested elections boosts turnout.

- 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, and Back Bay (about 15%), the gap between the white and non-white neighborhoods was not so big.

- The turnout gap between white  neighborhoods vs. other neighborhoods shrinks as the overall turnout increases.    The chart shows the 2005 vs. 2009 and 2001 vs. 2009 turnout changes.  The 2009 turnout was 100% higher than the 2005 turnout.  But in the whitest neighborhoods like South Boston, West Roxbury, and white parts of Dorchester were up only 50%-70%.   The non-whitest neighborhoods were up 180% – 220%.

- The last very-contested mayor’s race in Boston was in 1993, when Menino was elected to an open seat after Ray Flynn left.  The turnout was 112K in the primary and 118K in the general.  This year, a contested mayor’s race plus a strong city council field with 4 non-white candidates (never more than 2 before, I’m pretty sure) might produce a 10K-20K boost in turnout for the general.

The Mayor’s Race:

Here’s a link to the mayoral candidate results by neighborhood.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdEMtbzVnWERCVnp4d3BVMTJ5S0RhNEE&hl=en

- It would take a miracle (or a very large scandal) for a powerful, popular, well-funded incumbent like Menino to lose this race.

- Menino did very well in the non-white neighborhoods and decently in the white, liberal-voting neighborhoods.  Menino did a lot better in Yoon’s base than he did in Flaherty’s base.   Menino took enough votes in Yoon’s base to keep Yoon out of second place.  For any non-white candidate to do well citywide, he/she must do well in the white, liberal-voting and non-white neighborhoods and get a decent turnout there.  Yoon got the turnout, but not the support there.  An overall turnout of closer to 100K (actual was 81K) probably would have put Yoon in second place.

- Menino (50% citywide) was strongest in the least-white neighborhoods like Mattapan and parts of Dorchester (90+% non-white population) with 69+% of the votes there.  He was also very strong in his home turf of Hyde Park and Readville with 68+%.  Other than South Boston and the low-turnout downtown neighborhoods, Menino got at 39% of the vote everywhere.

- Flaherty (24% citywide) was strongest in the whitest neighborhoods.  Outside of South Boston (61%), he got 30-42% of the vote in West Roxbury, Charlestown, and the white parts of Dorchester.   He got less than 10% in the least-white neighborhoods.  He also didn’t get much support in the white, liberal-voting neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain, South End, and Fenway with 12% -16% of the vote.

- Yoon (21% citywide) did best in the white, liberal-voting neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain, South End, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill with 30%-40% of the vote there.  He got 17%-28% in the more non-white neighborhoods.   Yoon was weak in the non-white neighborhoods like Mattapan and parts of Dorchester with around 18% of the vote.  Even in Chinatown, Menino beat Yoon 58% to 24%.

- McCrea (4% citywide) did best in the downtown, white neighborhoods (Back Bay, Beacon Hill, South End) with high single-digits there.  He got low to mid-single digits everywhere else.

- I don’t see much hope for a big improvement by Flaherty in the November general.  Yoon voters (white-liberals and non-whites) are more likely to support Menino as a second choice.  And the turnout increase should bring relatively more voters from white-liberal and non-white neighborhoods.

The City Council At-Large Race:

Here’s a link to the city council candidate results by neighborhood.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdDFHUGZPREpCT1NFb1lZb2hTUGl2T2c&hl=en

Here’s a quick summary of the results.  The top 8 run in the general for 4 at-large seats.

2009 Candidate	Finish Order	2009 Primary Candidate Votes	2009 Primary % Vote	Candidate Race/Ethnicity
Connolly	1	35,115	43%	White – Irish
Murphy	2	30,311	38%	White – Irish
Arroyo, Jr.	3	25,821	32%	Latino – Puerto Rican
Pressley	4	16,846	21%	African-American
Kenneally	5	12,632	15%	White – Irish
Jackson	6	12,520	15%	African-American
Bennett	7	10,519	13%	White
Gonzalez	8	10,108	12%	Latino – Puerto Rican
Ezedi	9	9,245	11%	African-American
Nguyen	10	7,682	9%	Asian – Vietnamese
Ryan	11	6,654	8%	White
Sanon	12	5,377	7%	Latino – Haitian
Fortes	13	5,062	6%	African-American
Trabucco	14	3,126	4%	White
Willis	15	2,638	3%	African-American

- These results are different from what is published by the city.  The way the city counts it is:  100 voters cast 300 votes (a voter can vote for upto 4 candidates) for various candidates.  Candidate X gets 30 votes.  The city calculates it as Candidate X got 10% of the vote (30 of 300).  I calculate it as Candidate X getting 30% of the vote (30 votes from 100 people turning out).  My method is the way it gets calculated in all other elections, so I think it’s much more useful to use this method to compare with other election results.

- In the 2005 General, Murphy came in 4th with 37% of the vote, and Connolly came in 5th with 33% of the vote.   So mid-30s is likely what it will take to get elected in November.  Given that 5 non-white and 2 white candidates were eliminated, and that the expected increased turnout will probably bring out relatively more non-white voters, there should be more votes going to the non-white candidates than the white candidates.  So the question is:  can 3 non-whites get elected?  With a good boost in turnout, there’s a chance.  Below is a chart of the 2005 results of the top 8.  Notice that the bottom 4 candidates’ % of the vote went down from the primary to the general.

CANDIDATE	Finish Order in General	2005 General	2005 Primary
Flaherty	1	51%	44%
Arroyo, Sr.	2	45%	38%
Yoon	3	43%	32%
Murphy	4	37%	35%
Connolly	5	33%	35%
White	6	28%	32%
O’Malley	7	29%	30%
Flynn	8	22%	27%

Results by Neighborhood:

- Here’s a link to the RESULTS BY NEIGHBORHOOD tab with a chart that shows the results of all 15 candidates:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t1GPfODJBOSEoYYohSPivOg&single=true&gid=1&output=html

- As usual, there is a clear pattern exists that RACE STILL MATTERS!  White candidates do best in the whitest neighborhoods and non-white candidates do best in white-liberal and non-white neighborhoods.  Probably the only exception to this pattern in the last 22 years was the white-liberal city councilor Rosaria Salerno who won city-wide in 1987 – 1991 (disclaimer:  I worked on her campaigns). That’s why I always include the 2000 Census race data in every chart.

- Others have commented on the details of where each candidate’s support came from, so I won’t try to repeat that here.  You can look at the chart at the link about to see it all.  Here are some of my observations:

• Connolly’s support (43% citywide) ranged from 70% (West Roxbury) and 63% (Charlestown) to 18% (Roxbury, Grove Hall).
• Murphy’s support (37% citywide) ranged from 67% (Readville) and about 55% (South Boston, south-white Dorchester) to 17% (Roxbury, Chinatown).
• Arroyo’s support (32% citywide) ranged from 62% (Jamaica Plain) and 44% (Roxbury) to 18% (south-white Dorchester and 12% South Boston.
• Pressley’s support (21% citywide) ranged from about 32% (Melville/Ashmont-Dorchester, Beacon Hill, South End) to about 11% (East Boston, South Boston, Readville).  As a black candidate, her numbers were not great in the most-non-white neighborhoods.
• Kenneally’s support (15% citywide) ranged from about 33% (West Roxbury and East Boston) to about 3% (Mattapan, Roxbury, Grove Hall, Blue Hill Ave.).
• Jackon’s support (15% citywide) ranged from 42% (Roxbury) and mid-30s% (Grove Hall, Blue Hill Ave.) to about 5% (South Boston, Charlestown, East Boston).
• Bennett’s support (13% citywide) ranged from 37% (West End) and mid-20s% (South Boston, Beacon Hill, North End) to about 5% (Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, most of the least-white neighborhoods)
• Gonzalez’ support (12% citywide) ranged from about 27% (Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill) to about 6% (South Boston, Brighton, West Roxbury, south-white Dorchester).
• Nguyen only got 15% in Chinatown.

- Here are places where the non-white candidates should focus their efforts, using Arroyo Sr. results in 2005 General as a baseline (45% citywide):

• Jamaica Plain and Roxbury (71%)
• Grove Hall (65%)
• 61% in South End and Fenway
• Avoid South Boston (16%) and white-south Dorchester (20%)

- Here are places where the white candidates should focus their efforts, using Flaherty results in 2005 General as a baseline (51% citywide):

• South Boston (781%)
• Charlestown (69%)
• south-white Dorchester (67%)
• Avoid Jamaica Plain (34%) and Roxbury (36%)

Votes per Ballot:

- Here’s a link to the VOTES PER BALLOT tab with a chart that shows the average # of city council candidates (upto 4)  that a voter voted for, broken down by neighborhood.  Using only one or two of your four votes is referred to as “bullet voting”.  There is clearlymuch more of that going on this year than average.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t1GPfODJBOSEoYYohSPivOg&single=true&gid=2&output=html

- A voter casts one ballot and can vote for up to 4 city council candidates in the at-large race.  In the past 10-20 years, voters typically average around 3 of their votes per ballot.   This election, voters used about 2.4 votes per ballot.  This is somewhat surprising, since I would have expected that given there were lots of good candidates to choose from, voters would have used more, not less.  This election, as in the past, the whitest neighborhoods are one or two tenths of a vote above the city average and the least-white neighborhoods  are a few tenths of a vote below the city average.

- Bullet voting actually works against non-white neighborhoods’ clout.  There are less votes per voter coming out of those neighborhoods, compared to the whitest neighborhoods.  Promoting a “use all 4 votes” strategy will increase the chances of getting 2 or 3 non-white candidates elected this year.

Get all the raw data here:

Last but not least, in the interest of  making public records public, here’s a link to all the raw precinct data (thank you Dragon voice recognition software!) I used her.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdHFRZVgzVFBCWTlLQ21Ca3o0Qy1jSXc&hl=en

Here’s a link to the not-so-useful version from the Boston Election Department.

The mayor’s race results: 

http://www.cityofboston.gov/elections/pdfs/2009%20_09-22-09MayorUnofficialResultsbyWardandPrecinct.pdf

The city council at-large results:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/elections/pdfs/2009%20-%2009-22-09%20-%20City%20Councillor%20at%20Large%20Unofficial%20Ward%20&%20Precinct%20Results.pdf

Chart Notes:

- I base the % turnout numbers on turnout vs. the active voter count, instead of the total voter count (voter status = active + inactive).  The inactive voters are usually 20%-25% of the total voter count and represent voters who are mostly gone, but for a variety of reasons, can’t be officially purged from the voter list.  If I included the inactive voters in the % turnout calculations, I think it artificially drives down the % turnout.  In Boston, the inactive voters as a group typically vote at one-tenth the rate of active voters.

- Since Dorchester is by far the biggest neighborhood (66K total voters) and has diverse sub-neighborhoods, I also break out those sub-neighborhood totals.

- Sometimes a very contested district city council election will distort the overall results.  For example, the Yancey vs. Ezedi race in 2003 caused the turnout in that district to be about twice as high as other precincts outside the district with a similar past turnout history.

Initial Boston 2009 Primary Turnout results

Here’s a first pass at the Boston 2009 Primary results from a neighborhood perspective (lots more to come in the next few days).  Sorry, but spreadsheets don’t format well here, so you have to see the data at the link below:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tC-o5gXDBVzxwpU12yKDa4A&output=html

The story of the mayor’s race:

Menino did very well in the non-white neighborhoods and decently in the white liberal-voting neighborhoods.  Menino took enough votes away from Yoon there to keep Yoon out of second place.

Overall turnout was decent, not great, for a contested primary.   The whitest conservative-voting neighborhoods turned out best in this moderate-turnout election, as expected.  The rule of thumb is that this white neighborhood turnout advantage shrinks as the overall city turnout goes up.   Those 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.  Also, Yoon’s liberal and non-white voters are more likely to switch to Menino than Flaherty

Details:

- Menino (50% citywide) was strongest in the least-white neighborhoods like Mattapan and parts of Dorchester (90+% non-white population) with 70+% of the votes there.  He was also very strong in his home turf of Hyde Park and Readville, about 70%.

- Flaherty (24% citywide) was strongest in the whitest neighborhoods.  Outside of South Boston (61%), he got 30-42% of the vote in West Roxbury, Charlestown, and the white parts of Dorchester.   He got less than 10% in the least-white neighborhoods.

- Yoon (21% citywide) did best in the liberal-voting neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain, South End, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill with 30%-40% of the vote there.  He got 17%-28% in the more non-white neighborhoods.   Yoon’s problem was that Menino was more popular in his base than in Flaherty’s base.  Even in Chinatown, Menino beat Yoon 58% to 24%.

- McCrea (4% citywide) did best in the downtown neighborhoods with high single-digits there.

- 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 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+%.

In the interest of  making public records public, here’s a link to some raw precinct data (thank you Dragon voice recognition software!)  More to come!

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdHFRZVgzVFBCWTlLQ21Ca3o0Qy1jSXc&hl=en

Here’s a link to the not-so-useful version from the Boston Election Department.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/elections/pdfs/2009%20_09-22-09MayorUnofficialResultsbyWardandPrecinct.pdf

Boston 2008 Turnout by demographic groupings

2008 Boston Voter Turnout Analysis by Demographic Groupings

-          by Bob LeLievre, bob@lelievre.net, last updated 12/17/2008

Here’s some info on turnout rates in the 2008 elections in Boston of various demographic groups.

The data shown here is derived from analyzing voter lists that contain the demographic and turnout data for each individual voter.  All these individual counts are from voter lists obtained on or near that election day.  Individual voter turnout data is later (as it becomes available) merged back to those election day voter lists.  This data allows me to make meaningful year-by-year turnout comparisons.  This reveals voting patterns that can be used to create voter contact strategies for future elections, based on the expected turnout.  These kinds of calculations can’t be generated from precinct-level results.

Below is a table of turnout of various groups of voters (segmented by age/gender/party groupings) for 3 Boston elections in 2008.  These elections show a range of overall turnouts – low, medium, and high.  These counts include only active voters.  Inactive voters are removed from these counts, because they turn out at very low rates compared to active voters.

Here’s a link to all the raw data for 14 Boston elections from 2002 to 2008.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p555oIFwjf0QLiKo6jGywZg

Here are the highlights:

AGE

• The conventional wisdom of voter turnout is that older voters turn out much more than younger voters.  These numbers show that it depends on the overall turnout. Voting rates start to drop for ages 80+, so I don’t include them in some of the comparisons below.

• There aren’t too many old voters.  The 18-29 age group is the largest block of voters, about 29% of all registered voters.   The 18-39 age group is 51% of all registered voters.  The 80+ voters are only 6% of all registered voters.  The 70+ voters are 13% of all registered voters.

• In a high-turnout election like the 2008 General (overall turnout = 77%), every age group turns out at a pretty high rate.  It ranges from a low of 70% for the 18-23 age group vs. a high of 82% for the 50-59 age group.

• In a medium-turnout election like the 2008 Presidential Primary (overall turnout = 46%), the older voters turn out as much as twice the rate of younger voters.  It ranges from a low of 26% for the 18-23 age group vs. a high of 60% for the 60-69 age group.

• In a low-turnout election like the 2008 State Primary (overall turnout = 19%), the older voters turn out as much as 7 times the rate of younger voters.  It ranges from a low of 5% for the 18-23 age group vs. a high of 37% for the 70-79 age group.

• As the overall turnout gets lower, the voting rate gap between old and young grows.  In the 2008 General, the 80-89 age group turnout is about the same as the 18-23 age group (68% vs. 70%).  In the 2008 State Primary, it’s about 5 times higher (32% vs. 6%).

GENDER

• There are significantly more female than male registered voters (55% vs. 44%) in Boston.

• Female turnout is somewhat higher than male turnout in higher-turnout elections in all age groups, except for 80+ voters.  It’s roughly even in low-turnout elections.

PARTY

• Democratic Party voters generally turn out significantly higher than Republican Party voters.  This is may be largely due to the fact there are relatively few strong Republican Party local state-wide candidates.
• There are about 9 times as many registered Democrats vs. registered Republicans (167K vs. 19K).  Good luck to any Republican running for local office in Boston!

ACTIVE vs. INACTIVE STATUS

• Inactive voters have been around 20-25% of all (active + inactive) voters in Boston since 2002.  As a group, active voters vote at a far higher rate than inactive voters.  In high-turnout elections like November presidential elections, the rate is 7-10 times higher.  In lower-turnout elections, like uncontested primaries, the rate is 20-30 times higher.

• I typically exclude the inactive voters from turnout calculations because the rate is so different.  My understanding, from conversations with local election department staff, is that most of the inactive voters really don’t exist, but can’t be officially dropped from the voter file, as per federal HAVA rules (Help America Vote Act).  In Massachusetts, the rules are:  doesn’t respond to the local annual census, doesn’t show up as moved in RMV databases, doesn’t vote for 3 years, etc.).

• For voter targeting purposes, you could segment inactive voters into frequent and infrequent sub-segments to identify inactive voters more likely to turn out.  But in general, most of these voters no longer exist and it would be a waste of time to target them for voter contacts.

• Rates of active vs. inactive voters vary widely around the state, even though there is supposed to be a uniform rule of how a voter gets tagged as inactive.  Some towns of 10,000+ voters have ZERO inactive voters, like Franklin, Newburyport, Webster, and Fairhaven.  Other cities have very high rates (30 – 60%) of inactive voters, like Lawrence, Chelsea, Haverhill, and Fitchburg.  Obviously, the rules are not being enforced uniformly.

Click on the chart below to see graph of % turnout vs. age group:

Below is a table  of  all the raw data for % turnout vs. demographic categories in the 3 Boston elections in 2008:

Voter Demographic Segment	Active Voter Count as of 11/2008	% of all Active Voters	General 2008 % Turnout	State Primary 2008 % Turnout	Pres. Primary 2008 % Turnout	General 2007 % Turnout
Active Voter Count	290,292	.	290,292	260,933	275,984	262,089
Active Voter Turnout	223,130	.	223,130	49,184	128,081	45,467
Active % Turnout	77%	.	77%	19%	46%	17%
Inactive % Turnout	10.6%	.	10.6%	0.8%	5.5%	0.8%
Democrat	166,512	57%	80%	24%	53%	21%
Republican	18,683	6%	71%	6%	35%	9%
No/Other Party	105,097	36%	74%	13%	38%	13%
All Female	159,425	55%	79%	19%	49%	17%
All Male	128,020	44%	75%	19%	44%	18%
Unknown Gender	2,847	1%	61%	5%	23%	4%
All Age 18 – 23	31,029	11%	70%	5%	26%	4%
All Age 24 – 29	52,666	18%	75%	6%	34%	4%
All Age 30 – 39	65,063	22%	77%	10%	40%	8%
All Age 40 – 49	52,775	18%	80%	19%	50%	17%
All Age 50 – 59	48,708	17%	82%	26%	58%	24%
All Age 60 – 69	35,141	12%	81%	33%	60%	29%
All Age 70 – 79	20,911	7%	78%	37%	57%	36%
All Age 80 – 89	13,256	5%	68%	32%	47%	34%
All Age 90+	3,180	1%	49%	21%	31%	21%
Female Age 18 – 23	17,096	6%	73%	4%	27%	4%
Female Age 24 – 29	29,509	10%	77%	6%	36%	4%
Female Age 30 – 39	34,958	12%	79%	10%	42%	8%
Female Age 40 – 49	27,305	9%	82%	19%	53%	17%
Female Age 50 – 59	26,330	9%	84%	26%	61%	23%
Female Age 60 – 69	19,329	7%	83%	33%	62%	28%
Female Age 70 – 79	12,048	4%	79%	38%	59%	36%
Female Age 80 – 89	8,474	3%	66%	31%	46%	32%
Female Age 90+	3,180	1%	49%	21%	31%	21%
Male Age 18 – 23	13,091	5%	66%	5%	25%	5%
Male Age 24 – 29	22,451	8%	72%	6%	31%	5%
Male Age 30 – 39	29,423	10%	75%	10%	38%	9%
Male Age 40 – 49	25,087	9%	77%	19%	47%	17%
Male Age 50 – 59	22,145	8%	79%	27%	54%	25%
Male Age 60 – 69	15,650	5%	79%	33%	57%	30%
Male Age 70 – 79	8,765	3%	77%	36%	55%	35%
Male Age 80 – 89	4,752	2%	70%	33%	48%	36%
Male Age 90+	3,180	1%	49%	21%	31%	21%

Boston Turnout Results – 2008 General

Boston Voter Turnout by Neighborhood in the 2008 General Election

-          by Bob LeLievre

Summary

Overall voter turnout in presidential elections in Boston has increased significantly in the last 8 years, from 188K in 2000 to 203K in 2004 to 234K in 2008.  The biggest increases are in non-white / liberal-voting neighborhoods like Chinatown (up 95% since 2000), Grove Hall (up 60% since 2000), and Fields Corner (up 56% since 2000).  The smallest increases are in white / conservative-voting neighborhoods like West Roxbury (up 4% since 2000), Readville (up 7% since 2000), and South-white Dorchester (up 12% since 2000).

These results follow similar trends in lower-turnout elections for state and local offices.  This is encouraging news for non-white / liberal candidates who can now run in elections that are no longer dominated by white conservative voters.

Here’s a breakdown by neighborhood:

NEIGHBORHOOD	11/2008 Turnout	% Turnout change 2004-2008	% Turnout change 2000-2008	Official Turnout Rate	Estimated Real Turnout Rate	2000 Census Data % White Population
CITY-WIDE TOTALS	234,514	16%	25%	62%	76%	55%
Allston	10,677	19%	21%	50%	70%	65%
Back Bay	7,232	7%	6%	56%	76%	81%
Beacon Hill	4,126	9%	5%	65%	82%	91%
Brighton	14,633	11%	9%	59%	75%	78%
Charlestown	8,158	15%	22%	64%	78%	85%
Chinatown	2,075	41%	95%	53%	64%	32%
Dorchester – All	43,616	20%	39%	62%	76%	28%
East Boston	9,235	14%	10%	56%	70%	53%
Fenway	6,108	2%	16%	51%	71%	69%
Hyde Park	13,830	19%	28%	67%	79%	38%
Jamaica Plain	18,347	14%	26%	67%	81%	57%
Mattapan	6,900	25%	42%	65%	78%	3%
Mission Hill	4,084	8%	26%	55%	72%	49%
North End	7,144	9%	16%	60%	76%	87%
Readville	1,343	10%	7%	72%	80%	84%
Roslindale	12,747	13%	20%	68%	79%	62%
Roxbury	17,273	23%	50%	59%	74%	14%
South Boston	16,538	19%	27%	65%	77%	88%
South End	12,963	11%	32%	60%	75%	60%
West End	2,098	12%	19%	54%	70%	83%
West Roxbury	15,387	11%	4%	73%	82%	89%
Dorchester Subtotals
Blue Hill Ave.-Wash. St.	7,269	24%	52%	61%	75%	2%
Bowdoin/Meetinghouse Hill	4,342	32%	67%	59%	75%	8%
Fields Corner	2,832	25%	56%	57%	74%	13%
Grove Hall	3,601	31%	60%	58%	74%	3%
Melville Park/Ashmont Hill	2,982	22%	35%	64%	79%	20%
Savin Hill	3,064	14%	23%	63%	76%	61%
South – Majority Non-White	6,337	18%	32%	63%	76%	32%
South – Majority White	7,633	8%	12%	69%	80%	75%
Uphams Corner	5,556	24%	53%	60%	74%	30%
Dorchester – All	43,616	20%	39%	62%	76%	28%

Details:

1. Voter Turnout

1. 1. The city-wide turnout was 234K voters, a 16% increase vs. the 2004 presidential election, and 25% increase vs. the 2000 presidential election.

1. 1. The changes in 2000-2008 vary widely by neighborhood, from as low as a 95% increase in Chinatown, to as low as a 4% increase in West Roxbury.  The trend is pretty clear:  the growth in turnout of non-white and liberal-voting voters is far higher than that of white conservative-voting voters.

1. Official % Turnout rate vs. Real % Turnout Rate

1. 1. The official city-wide turnout was 62%, based on a registered voter count of 380K.  This includes active and inactive voters.  Inactive voters are defined as voters who are believed to no longer live at their registration address (by not returning their annual census forms).  By federal law, they can’t be dropped (purged) from the voter list for 2 election cycles.  If an inactive voter does vote in that timeframe, he/she is returned to the “active” voter list.

1. 1. So in reality, the official registered voter count is inflated, because most of those inactive voters are gone and do not vote.  An example is out-of-state students who register in Boston, then move out-of-state after finishing school.  These students stay on the inactive voter list for a few years.  This is why neighborhoods with high student populations, like Allston and the Fenway have the highest rates of inactive voters.

1. 1. Some of those inactive voters are still at their registered address and do vote at a rate much lower than active voters.  My analysis of previous elections shows that inactive voters vote at about 1/10^th the rate of active voters.

1. 1. For simplicity reasons, I calculated an “estimated real turnout” rate by added 20% of the inactive voter count to the active voter count to determine a “real registered voter count”.  Using this number, I estimate the city-wide turnout to be 76%, far higher than the 62% official rate.

1. 1. These kinds of calculations can only be done by analyzing a voter file that includes the active/inactive field.

1. Data Details

1. 1. Dorchester is by far the biggest neighborhood in Boston, with a number of sub-neighborhoods with distinct voting patterns, so I broke those numbers out separately at the bottom of the chart.

1. 1. Census data counts are from the 2000 US Census Bureau precinct data of voting age populations (age 18+), also known as the “VAP”.

1. 1. Neighborhood counts are totaled from precinct-based election data.  Precincts are assigned to neighborhoods according to Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) data.

Boston Election Results – 2008 General

Boston Election Results by Neighborhood in the 2008 General Election

-          by Bob LeLievre, updated on 11/13/2008

Summary

Barak Obama got 79% of the votes in Boston.  He got 95%+ of the votes in high non-white neighborhoods like Roxbury, Mattapan, Grove Hall, and the Blue Hill Avenue / Washington Street Corridor.  He got about 60% of the vote in high white neighborhoods like South Boston, West Roxbury, Readville, and south-white Dorchester.

The No on Question 1 vote (to keep the state income tax) got 71% of the votes. The range was not as large as in the presidential race.  It did best in liberal-voting neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain (81%), Melville Park / Ashmont Hill (77%) and Mattapan (76%).  It did worst in high-income white neighborhoods like Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the West End (about 64%), but these numbers are still pretty high.

The Yes on Question 2 vote (to decriminalize pot) got 65% of the votes.  It did best student neighborhoods like Allston, Brighton, the Fenway and also in liberal-voting ones like Jamaica Plain and the South End (70% – 74%).  It did worst in a mix of neighborhoods like Chinatown, East Boston, Hyde Park, West Roxbury, and south-white Dorchester (54% – 58%).

These results follow similar trends in lower-turnout elections for state and local offices.  This is encouraging news for non-white / liberal candidates who can now run in elections that are no longer dominated by white conservative voters.

Here’s a breakdown by neighborhood:

NEIGHBORHOOD	11/2008 Turnout	G2008 % Obama	G2008 % Q1-No	G2008 % Q2 – Yes	Estimated Real Turnout Rate	2000 Census Data % White Population
CITY-WIDE TOTALS	234,514	79%	71%	65%	76%	55%
Allston	10,677	82%	69%	73%	70%	65%
Back Bay	7,232	75%	63%	72%	76%	81%
Beacon Hill	4,126	77%	65%	71%	82%	91%
Brighton	14,633	74%	71%	67%	75%	78%
Charlestown	8,158	65%	66%	64%	78%	85%
Chinatown	2,075	75%	66%	57%	64%	32%
Dorchester – All	43,616	84%	73%	61%	76%	28%
East Boston	9,235	66%	65%	57%	70%	53%
Fenway	6,108	82%	67%	72%	71%	69%
Hyde Park	13,830	84%	74%	58%	79%	38%
Jamaica Plain	18,347	88%	81%	74%	81%	57%
Mattapan	6,900	97%	76%	64%	78%	3%
Mission Hill	4,084	85%	71%	66%	72%	49%
North End	7,144	69%	65%	68%	76%	87%
Readville	1,343	61%	73%	56%	80%	84%
Roslindale	12,747	77%	75%	63%	79%	62%
Roxbury	17,273	96%	74%	66%	74%	14%
South Boston	16,538	59%	67%	63%	77%	88%
South End	12,963	85%	71%	71%	75%	60%
West End	2,098	71%	63%	68%	70%	83%
West Roxbury	15,387	59%	69%	57%	82%	89%
Dorchester Subtotals
Blue Hill Ave.-Wash. St.	7,269	97%	76%	63%	75%	2%
Bowdoin/Meetinghouse Hill	4,342	94%	70%	59%	75%	8%
Fields Corner	2,832	88%	68%	62%	74%	13%
Grove Hall	3,601	97%	75%	64%	74%	3%
Melville Park/Ashmont Hill	2,982	92%	77%	70%	79%	20%
Savin Hill	3,064	66%	68%	60%	76%	61%
South – Majority Non-White	6,337	86%	77%	65%	76%	32%
South – Majority White	7,633	58%	69%	54%	80%	75%
Uphams Corner	5,556	86%	70%	61%	74%	30%
DORCHESTER – ALL	43,616	84%	73%	61%	76%	28%

Details:

1. Election Results

1. 1. The variations by neighborhood in the presidential race were pretty similar to the 2006 General where Deval Patrick got 72% of the votes city-wide.  For example Patrick got about 95% in places like Mattapan, Roxbury and Grove Hall, and about 50% in places like South Boston and West Roxbury.
   2. I don’t see any big surprises in Question 1 or 2 results.  Liberal-voting neighborhoods supported No on Q1 and Yes on Q2 a lot higher than conservative-voting neighborhoods.  The only exception was weaker support for Yes on Q2 in some non-white neighborhoods.

1. Official % Turnout rate vs. Real % Turnout Rate

1. 1. See the blog post on BOSTON VOTER TURNOUT ANALYSIS – 2008 GENERAL for details

1. Data Details

1. 1. Dorchester is by far the biggest neighborhood in Boston, with a number of sub-neighborhoods with distinct voting patterns, so I broke those numbers out separately at the bottom of the chart.

1. 1. Census data counts are from the 2000 US Census Bureau precinct data of voting age populations (age 18+), also known as the “VAP”.

1. 1. Neighborhood counts are totaled from precinct-based election data.  Precincts are assigned to neighborhoods according to Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) data.

moral

Boston Population Changes 1990-2000

Boston Voting Age Population (VAP) changes – from 1990 to 2000 – from US Census precinct-level data

- by Bob LeLievre

Boston Neighborhood		2000 Census VAP Count	VAP % Change 1990-2000		2000 Census % White VAP	White VAP %Change 1990-2000		% Registered vs. VAP Count
Boston City-Wide Total		472,582	2%		55%	-9%		59%
Allston		35,528	4%		65%	-3%		38%
Back Bay		18,035	-5%		81%	-5%		47%
Beacon Hill		6,648	-5%		91%	-3%		64%
Brighton		33,418	-4%		78%	-5%		54%
Charlestown		12,371	0%		85%	-11%		79%
Chinatown		5,379	47%		32%	4%		47%
Dorchester – All		86,846	4%		28%	-15%		61%
East Boston		29,995	14%		53%	-25%		40%
Fenway		24,708	11%		69%	-3%		31%
Hyde Park		23,545	2%		38%	-28%		68%
Jamaica Plain		28,469	-2%		57%	-4%		72%
Mattapan		13,429	-3%		3%	-4%		60%
Mission Hill		10,623	3%		49%	1%		48%
North End		13,430	4%		87%	-5%		61%
Readville		2,305	-5%		84%	-13%		69%
Roslindale		22,325	1%		62%	-22%		68%
Roxbury		30,576	-4%		14%	4%		67%
South Boston		25,854	2%		88%	-8%		71%
South End		22,032	6%		60%	4%		70%
West End		4,277	10%		83%	-5%		56%
West Roxbury		22,789	-8%		89%	-6%		80%
Dorchester Subtotals
Blue Hill/Wash. St. Corridor		14,421	2%		2%	-1%		61%
Bowdoin / Meetinghouse Hill		9,314	0%		8%	-8%		56%
Fields Corner		6,394	5%		13%	-16%		55%
Grove Hall		6,763	6%		3%	-1%		65%
Melville Park / Ashmont Hill		5,547	2%		20%	-11%		63%
Savin Hill		6,070	7%		61%	-25%		61%
South – Majority Minority		13,472	7%		32%	-35%		58%
South – Majority White		12,684	-3%		75%	-16%		72%
Uphams Corner		12,181	10%		30%	-15%		54%
Dorchester Total		86,846	4%		28%	-15%		61%

Highlights

1)     The city-wide VAP increased by 2%.

a.      Most neighborhoods saw a positive or negative change of less than 10%.

b.     A few places with the largest changes, such as Chinatown (up 47%), East Boston (up 14%), Fenway (up 11%), and West End (up 10%), are probably due to recent apartment/condo building construction. Chinatown is a relatively small neighborhood (about 5400 voting age residents), so a relatively small increase in population would cause a large percentage increase.

2)     The racial profile of Boston neighborhoods changed more significantly from 1990 to 2000.

a.      The city-wide % of the white VAP decreased by 9% to 55% overall from 1990 to 2000 with decreases in almost every neighborhood.

b.     Only a few neighborhoods saw a small increase in the % white VAP; Chinatown (up 4%) South End (up 4%), Roxbury (up 4%).  My guess is those are largely due to gentrification from upper-income whites moving into new apartments/condos.

c.      There were large decreases in the % white VAP in some large, formerly “very white” neighborhoods like East Boston (down 25%), Hyde Park (down 28%), Roslindale (down 22%), and parts of south Dorchester (down 35%).

d.      Even the “whitest, most conservative-voting” neighborhoods had sizeable decreases, such as South Boston (down 8%), West Roxbury (down 8%), and Charlestown (down 11%).

3)     Voter registration rates of the VAP vary widely by neighborhood, from 31% to 80%.

a.      The lowest registration rates are in Allston (38%) and Fenway (31%), which have high student-age and transient populations.  Also are the low side are East Boston (40%), Chinatown (47%), and Mission Hill (48%), probably due, to some extent, high umbers of recent immigrants.

b.     The highest registration rates are mostly in the white, conservative-voting neighborhoods, like West Roxbury (80%), Charlestown (79%), southern-white Dorchester (72%), and South Boston (70%).  Some exceptions are diverse neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain (72%) and the South End (70%).

4)      Data details

a.      Precincts are assigned to neighborhoods according to BRA (Boston Redevelopment Authority) data.

b.     Registered voter counts are based on the active vote counts from a 10/2006 Boston voter list.

c.      Census data counts are from 1990 and 2000 US Census Bureau precinct counts of voting age populations (age 18+).