By now you should have seen this map a couple times:
I've read some comments from people who think that the map proves that racial voting patterns still exist. I know I said last night that you can tell a lot from maps in that they help to provide a strong visual of certain problems and issues but in this case, I think there's some value to looking directly at the data behind the maps.
To that end, Wendy will be putting up information about the ward-by-ward results so we can see by just how much Nutter won his wards, Brady won his wards and Knox won his wards. I'll also be exploring some other maps, provided to us by The Reinvestment Fund to see what we can learn from voting patterns compared to education levels, poverty levels, etc.
Also on deck, our Radio News department is working on stories that examine the influence of the party machinery and whether this election signals the beginning of the end of that influence or the result of a breakdown in cohesion that has been going on for a while.
The Election analysis continues then we'll get back to the issues.
Comments (24)
Yeah, that map is veeerrry interesting. Sure, Nutter got white votes and Knox got black votes, but the colors on the chart show that color-based voting is alive and well in Philly.
Posted by D.E. II | May 16, 2007 12:28 PM
Are there any figures on turnout? Was it as low as expected?
Posted by Anonymous | May 16, 2007 12:42 PM
Party cohesion seems to have broken down a bit with respect to the mayor's race - but take a look at the Council races, particularly Council At-Large, which makes me think that the machinery isn't quite as diminished as one might think.
Posted by Anonymous | May 16, 2007 1:02 PM
How so D.E. II? Northwest Philadelphia and Center City is mostly white but quite diverse and went for Nutter while Northeast Philadelphia is the same but went for Knox. Don't cast racial aspersions when you don't have to. This election proves that Philadelphia is beyond race. Accept the victory that is now ours.
Posted by PhillyDeservesBetter | May 16, 2007 1:04 PM
How so?
The parts of the Northwest that are predominantly black - which is most of the Northwest, went for Nutter. Voters in South Philly and the Northeast voted for a white candidate.
White upper and middle class voters crossed over in pretty large numbers for Nutter, yes, but it remains to be seen how many black voters crossed over for white candidates. How blacks many voted for Brady? And given the number of votes Knox got in the Northeast, how many of his total votes were from blacks?
Meanwhile, how many white votes did Fattah or Evans get?
Posted by D.E. II | May 16, 2007 1:24 PM
It always makes me laugh when people (white suburbanities) bring up the issue of race in Philly elections.
Actually is sad, because white suburbanities will not even share a community with blacks and other minorities much less vot for them.
It's so easy to see race as an issue in suburbs as its racial makeup of elected officials is similar to the GOP.
But for some reason you never hear about this from the Philly media. Why? Because it would mean placing a mirror on themselves and where they live.
Can't have that.
Posted by Fante | May 16, 2007 1:34 PM
Whats astonishing is that Fattah did not get a single ward - not one. Even the 11th that is declared split on the map went to Nutter by a whisker. This is an astonshing loss for Fattah's much ballyhooed GOTV operation - though it did apprerntly squeak in Curtis Jones in a tight 3-way race.
Posted by seand | May 16, 2007 1:38 PM
D.E. II - You don't know Northwest Philadelphia very well. There are parts that are mostly black and mostly white, and some that are diverse. The 21st Ward in Roxborough & Manayunk is diverse, but largely a white ethnic, working class rowhouse community.
Posted by PhillyDeservesBetter | May 16, 2007 1:46 PM
Further, you also don't know the lower Northeast very well...it's not all white any more. People didn't vote based on race this election, for the most part. Sorry that disappoints you.
Posted by PhillyDeservesBetter | May 16, 2007 1:49 PM
Bob Brady jumped on a grenade for the City of Philadelphia. Knox would have been a disaster and Brady was the only thing standing between the vampire and this City.
Good luck Michael...
Posted by Jill | May 16, 2007 1:55 PM
Jill - I agree with you about Brady, but he took a little grenade to avoid the bomb that would have hit him and his party pals if Knox had one.
Posted by PhillyDeservesBetter | May 16, 2007 2:14 PM
Dan writes:
"I've read some comments from people who think that the map proves that racial voting patterns still exist."
I couldn't levae this thread before posting something about Dan's comment.
I guess Wendy is on lunch break so Dan has to try to create controversy where none exists. It's amazing how media folks in this town can't stand to see Philadelphian largely happy after an election.
I read exactly one post from someone who commented on racial patterns based on the map. Somehow that turns into "some comments" and is being used as an attempt to divide those commenting on this blog.
In a crowded field, Nutter received broad and widespread support in this election. If Nutter ran in the suburbs he would have never had a chance.
That's the story.
Posted by Fante | May 16, 2007 2:16 PM
Did anybody notice that Nutter received more votes than Brady and Fattah COMBINED!!!
Posted by PhillyDeservesBetter | May 16, 2007 2:20 PM
Until we actually get the intra-ward voting breakdown, perhaps it's best to withhold judgment on the racial aspect of the voting. Although the ward map does bring into play the question of whether the northeast will vote for a black candidate.
However, this is not the Rizzo elections of the 70s, or the Rizzo-Goode battle of the 80s. Or even 1999. I think the racial voting divide has lessened. How much so remains an open question.
Posted by Forrest Yerkes | May 16, 2007 3:04 PM
"Doesn't it stand to reason that because he had widespread support that he would have had a chance in the suburbs?"
Really, Dan? I don't think it "stands to reason" that a qualified black candidate like Nutter would receive the same breadth of support in the city that he would in the white-flight suburbs surrounding Phialdelphia, where people have chosen to live as far away from African-Americans as possible. There is no logical assumption and connection.
"If I wanted to stir up controversy or pop the "happiness" bubble of Philadelphia, I would have said repeatedly that 63+% of Philadelphia did not vote for Nutter."
And there you go wasting my time again with IRV, whose only support is among a handful of goo goos and Nader voters.
It has no place in the discussion of this election.
Posted by Fante | May 16, 2007 3:20 PM
I found this on another site:
"The Inquirer actually has a list of ward-by-ward results on page A8 today.
I dumped the info into Excel and came up with some interesting observations.
Basically, Nutter won by a landslide in the wards that comprise a lot of middle and upper middle class areas of town...it also looks like turnout was relatively high in those same areas.
In Wards 5 & 8 (E and W of Broad, including Northern Liberties and the Loft District), Nutter won 71% of the vote. In Chestnut Hill, he won 75% of the vote.
Other areas where he got more than 50% of the vote include: Queen Village, Bella Vista, Fairmount, Art Museum, Manayunk, Roxborough, East Falls, West Mount Airy, University City, Graduate Hospital, and Cedar Park/Spruce Hill (with most of these areas at 55-65%).
In just those areas, Michael emerged with a 27,000 vote margin over Knox, which was almost insurmountable in my estimation.
The big surprise is that he did surprisingly well in some parts where he wasn't expected to...
In the 18th, which is mostly Fishtown, he got 850 votes, only 75 fewer than Knox and 100 MORE than Brady - who had 744.
In the far Northeast, he got 25-30+ % of the vote. In fact, in the 65th ward, which I think is Torresdale/Holmsburg, he actually received the most votes (1154) compared to Brady's 1032. For some reason, the color coded map in the Inquirer lists this as a Knox ward, unless Knox got 1247 votes (it lists 247, which I find implausible).
In another suprising twist, Nutter/Knox/and Brady basically split the vote in Pennsport with 1082/1191/1150 votes, respectively. This is a far better showing than I would expect in that pocket for him. I guess we have all the hipsters around Passyunk to thank for that?
The only areas that had fewer than 20% of the votes for Nutter were areas that were popular with both Knox and Fattah (North Philly east of Broad) and Knox and Brady (the lower Northeast and far South Philly - 39th and 26th)."
Posted by forrest yerkes | May 16, 2007 3:22 PM
Sorry, PhillyDeservesBetter but I'm still not feelin' the massive sea change in the mix of race and politics in Philly.
With relatively few exceptions (perhaps in the 21rst ward - but I'd be curious to see how the demographics of that area have changed in recent years due to gentrification), the vast majority of working class whites voted for one of the two white candidates (what's the percentage of non-whites in the Northeast - probably about 25%, the same as the percentage of votes Nutter got in the region). The vast majority of blacks voted for a black candidate. Even thought the 21rst ward may have gone for Nutter, the numbers of voters there as compared to the numbers in the rest of the Northwest who voted along race, and certainly race/class lines is pretty small.
It seems there are relatively few areas where working class or middle-class blacks voted in significant numbers for any white candidates.
When you factor in class, and the relatively high participation rates in the wealthier communities, what percentage of Philadelphians other than middle and upper class whites voted across racial lines?
When you factor in the relatively low participation rates among blacks, what percentage of Philly's black population voted for a white candidate.
Posted by D.E. II | May 16, 2007 4:11 PM
Again - you don't know the City very well. I repeat: Northwest Philadelphia is mostly white and much of it is working class and rowhome. They went for Nutter. Much of the lower Northeast is not white and working class and rowhome. They went for Knox. I suppose you're one of those types who likes for things to be racially charged. You're going to be be really disappointed with a Nutter Administration.
Posted by PhillyDeservesBetter | May 16, 2007 4:19 PM
Seriously, my man.
Most of Northwest Philly is working class and white? Have you ever been to Germantown or East Mt. Airy? Do you have numbers to compare the population figures of those areas (plus upper middle-class in Chestnut Hill and West Mt. Airy) to population numbers in Manayunk/Roxborough. My guess would be that white, working class numbers would be on the order of 1/3 at best.
And again, I don't know the lower Northeast all that well, but my guess is that if Nutter got 35% of the vote in the that area, it probably pretty closely matches the non-white population.
Try looking at some of the district races. How many people in the 8th crossed over to vote for Miller and Bass or Irv Ackelsberg and Paulmier? How many blacks crossed over to vote for McClure, how many whites for Campbell or Jones? How many whites voted for Damon Roberts? How many blacks for Verna or DiCicco or Longacre? Please.
I don't "like" "things" to be racially charged. But race-basd voting still exists in this city.
Posted by D.E. II | May 16, 2007 4:55 PM
Seriously yourself..."most" means a majority. Have you ever been to Roxborough or East Falls? How many racial cross-over votes constitutes a good number for you? I'm not going to do a ton of research for you. Go do it yourself. Most of Northwest Philadelphia is white. They voted for Nutter.
Posted by PhiladelphiaDeservesBetter | May 16, 2007 7:35 PM
Some race based voting exists everywhere in America D.E. It exists in Montgomery County, Bucks County, and Chester County. It exists in Chicago and New York City. It's a fact of modern American society. The big deal is that Philadelphia's race based voting has historically been far worse than elsewhere in the country and last night's numbers show THAT has changed.
Posted by Greg | May 16, 2007 7:37 PM
The mostly white 9th ward in Chestnut Hill/Mt. Airy went 75% for Nutter. The mostly white 21st ward in East Falls/Manayunk/Roxborough went 65% for Nutter. So much for you stupid theory that race based voting drove choice in the Northwest part of the City.
Posted by PhillyDeservesBetter | May 16, 2007 7:58 PM
"The big deal is that Philadelphia's race based voting has historically been far worse than elsewhere in the country"
Please back this up with some fact.
When Chicago elected a black mayor, whites couldn't leave the city fast enough.
Show me how many black elected officials live in predominately white communities in suburbia.
Posted by Fante | May 16, 2007 10:29 PM
The areas that are predominantly tan on this map -- the wards that went for Nutter -- are predominantly African American. And the areas that are predominantly blue and green on this map -- the wards that went for Knox and Brady -- are predominantly Caucasian. So of course it's totally silly for anyone to suggest that race played any role in this race. For how do you figure it was racial? Because the predominantly African American wards went for a black candidate and the predominantly Caucasian ones went for white candidates? No, those suggesting that race was a factor in this race will have to come up with much better than that. For seriously, since when is truth itself the proof of anything?
Posted by Steve W. | May 18, 2007 1:43 AM