This is probably a bad idea, considering its quite possible I'll be proven completely wrong in a mere 14 hours.
I think there's 2 sides to Boom vs Meyer. Out of only the people who voted in the primary, I believe Bill Boom will win a clear majority of the votes. The fact that 2/3rds of the primary participants voted against the incumbent means a lot to me. I think when you go in to vote in a primary, you first ask yourself if you want to reelect the person who's already there. If the answer to that is no, then you pick one of the challengers. If most people follow that logic when they vote (a BIG if) then Boom should get somewhere like 60% of the primary voters. That's allowing that 8 of the 68% who didn't vote Meyer were willing to vote for someone other than Keith, but not Bill, and therefore switch their vote back to pro-incumbent in the general.
However, the primary is not the election. Common belief is that voters who didn't vote in the primary will tend to split more for the incumbent. I agree with this, as if you plan to vote for the person already in office, in most cases you can assume they will make it past the primary and into the general, so why bother? So in that case the 68% who voted against Keith in the primary shouldn't matter.
But wait, this is the 3rd ward. In the 2005 primary, 674 people cast votes. In the 2003 general election, the number appears to have been a measly 837. Unless a large number of new voters have decided to participate this year, most of the 3rd ward voters participated in the primary. (This seems like a good thing to me, since primaries have historically had low turnout) If 60% of this year's primary voters split towards Boom, that would be 404 people. So if the same number of people vote today that voted in 2003's general election, Bill would only need to pick up 17 of the people who didn't vote in the primary. I think he can do this. My prediction is that Alderman Boom will be elected 55%-45%. We'll find out tonight.
P.S. The more I look at the stats here, it appears that over half the number of the 2003 general election participants voted in the 2005 primary in several of the wards. Is Davenport increasing voter turnout in a big way? Guess we'll find that out tonight too.
P. P. S. Sorry of this is more rambling than even my normal rambling. I just got home from work and I should be going to bed, not analyzing the 3rd ward.
4 comments:
I would guess that you've over-estimated Boom's share of those who voted in the primary. If Keith keeps all his 220 voters, adds 75% of Fredenburg's 81 voters (probable since John's endorsed Keith) and gets only 13% of those who voted for other 7 candidates listed, he's up to 300 rather than your figure of 270.
And I believe that 3rd ward voter turnout will exceed 1,000. Using your 60% of extra voters going for Keith, it only takes 1,044 voters in total to produce a dead heat.
I've got to agree that the totals will be up. I know of at least one voter that has moved to the 3rd in the last year...
The question then is which way these new voters will break?
And I'm wrong!
QCI,
This one was almost impossible to predict. Even though I am publicly a Boom supporter, I was still some what undecided right up until I put the pencil on the paper to mark my choice. I could have just as easily had a Meyers sign in my yard, or even both side by side.
I have always felt that Keith was a good man with good intentions. Plain and simple, Keith is a likeable, open minded person who is willing to listen. My hesitation on Keith was, he was the incumbent. This ward needs a lot of work. I know you can’t pin all the problems in the 3rd ward on one man, but ya gotta start somewhere.
Bill has energy about him, a natural charisma that draws people to him. Bill is willing to state his opinion and stick to it. I see these things as some of the most important qualities to look for in a leader. I think the biggest "turn off" for the Bill campaign was some of his supporters.
Anyhow, I think this was a good race, and good for the 3rd ward since it inspired more people to become involved in what’s going on. Hopefully people will start to open the doors, go outside and see that each one of us can help make a difference to change the way things are here in our little corner of the city and the world.
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