Oh, our readers are so great.
Plokozhopsky has compared voter turnout in this year's primary to the turnout in 1999 -- and mapped it.
I am out of the office so I haven't spot-checked his figures -- so you guys, go ahead. But his last maps were on target. And this map is fascinating...
Check it out behind the jump.
Comments (4)
Great map, I'm not sure how much time these take to make, but I'd love to see a few others if you have the time:
Progressive vote: Percent Nutter and Knox per ward.
Actual Percent Turnout per ward.
Thanks
Mark
Posted by Mark | May 20, 2007 9:10 AM
It seems Nutter won accross racial groups, but it appears he had the lowest number of actual votes than any Dem Nominee in recent history, or perhaps in history overall. Can anyone confirm that stat?
Posted by Anonymous | May 21, 2007 8:52 AM
Mark,
The turnout map is already on this blog -- you have to scroll down a bit.
I've updated the 99-07 change map, since I was rushed on Friday, and wanted to make it clearer. That map may replace the one currently on the site soon.
I'll try to do the "change vote" map when I get a chance.
Anyone -- I wish we could see some maps side by side. I'd like to see the change in turnout map next to the maps published in the inquirer which showed the vote for each candidate.
If I recall correctly, the areas where turnout has decreased coincide with the Evans, Fattah, and Brady vote, generally. Increased turnout is seen generally in areas where Nutter and Knox won. If this is true, any ideas about interpretation?
What does this say about who wants change? Is it the more affluent people who wanted change? And what does it say about Fattah's poverty message? Apparantly, it didn't excite his voters.
Does this mean that poorer people are growing more apathetic, but wealthier people more activist? Does this signal a revitalization of interest in central urban areas, and possible long term change in urban Philadelphia political power resulting from cross-racial gentrification trends?
Is it time to bet on a reversal of the last few decades of demographic trends, and see people moving back out of the burbs and into the revitalized city?
If Nutter can solidify business and real estate gains, create jobs and a marketable planning vision for Philly, I'll bet that education gains will follow. From the research I've seen, the best intervention to improve education is to make sure children's mothers have better jobs.
Perhaps better jobs equal higher income equal less stress, and more time to work with kids and support their education.
Maybe people sense this, and that's why the improve the business climate message sells better than the attack poverty message.
Posted by Plokozhopsky | May 21, 2007 1:56 PM
In fact, turnout decreased in Fattah's stronghold. Had you done Evans, I believe we would have seen his stronghold decrease, as well. Brady about broke even, doing better in one of his wards, and worse in another.
As you say Patrick, this does raise the question of what happened to the vaunted turnout machines of these so-called insiders? Perhaps turnout is associated more with excitement about a candidate than with political organization? You need volunteers, not paid poll-workers who show up for one day, and may not even support you with their votes.
I am interested in studying what happened in ward 26, which Wendy said has a strong organization as a result of Donatucci's machine. I wonder what he does that is so effective in helping with turnout.
I am particularly interested in the case of my home ward, the 27th, an outlier on your Nutter chart. Nutter got a high proportion of the vote in the 27th, but turnout declined precipitously. This may be because these data only included 97% of the reporting precincts. So I guess we should wait until the final figures are available. (Are they available yet, in if not, why are they so slow?) Still, I can't figure out why the 27th should decline so, unless there is a graduation effect, because Penn's graduations was the weekend before the election.
I would also like to suggest you recode these data, and combine the Knox and Nutter percents, and the other 3 candidates. I wonder if your graphs would look much more linear that way?
Posted by Plokozhopsky | May 22, 2007 4:19 PM