Bob LeLievre's Blog – "The" source for Massachusetts election data

January 21, 2010

Update # 3 – 2010 Mass. Senate General – City/Town Results

Filed under: Election Results — Tags: , , , , , — Bob LeLievre @ 1:35 pm


Here are some details of the Mass. Senate election, looking at individual city/town results.   As I described in my county analysis post ( http://wp.me/pn4iD-5J ), the 2006 Governor race won by Deval Patrick (55%) with a similar turnout is a good indicator of where a Democrat must do well to win state-wide.

Here are some turnout highlights:
  • State-wide turnout was 53%.
  • The highest turnout (71% to 76%) was mostly in smaller (<10,000 registered voters), high-income towns like Sherborn, Dover, Norfolk, Westwood, Bolton, Medfield, Stow, Topsfield, Berlin, Cohasset, Concord, and Harvard.
  • The lowest turnout was mostly in lower-income, non-white urban cities like Lawrence (25%), Chelsea (32%), Springfield (34%), Holyoke + Southbridge (35%), New Bedford (36%), Worcester + Fall River (37%), Lynn (38%), and Lowell (39%).
  • Following the conventional wisdom of voter turnout (see below), this was expected, but the range was much wider than it was in the 2006 General.  In that election, Patrick motivated those low-income/non-white voters to turn out at a higher rate.
    • The biggest drops in turnout from 2006 to 2010 (minus 8 to 13 percentage points) were in places like Lawrence, New Bedford, Chelsea, Fall River, and Worcester.   These are mostly places where Coakley did well and Patrick did very well.
    • The biggest gains in turnout from 2006 to 2010 (plus 5 to 7 percentage points) were in places like Norfolk, North Attleborough,Wrentham, Douglas, Franklin, Plainville, and Weymouth.  These are almost all places where Brown was very strong, with at least 64% of the vote.

Here are some candidate-performance highlights:
  • Scott Brown (R) beat Martha Coakly 52% to 47%.
  • In general, Coakley did best in the traditional Democratic strongholds like urban Boston-area cities/towns,  certain-liberal-voting suburban towns, and smaller towns in Western Mass.  Nothing suprising here.
  • Boston Globe website has posted a list of the 10 best/worst town results for each candidate ( http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2010/senate/top_bottom_towns.html ).
  • What’s more interesting are the differences in Coakley results vs. 2006 Patrick results.
    • Coakley’s best numbers were 2 to 4 percentage points higher than Patrick’s numbers in a few areas – strong-Democratic places like Provincetown, Cambridge, Somerville, Lincoln, Belmont, Arlington, and Lexington.
    • Coakley’s worst numbers were 15 to 20 percentage points below Patrick’s numbers in most of Worcester and Bristol County (except for the big cities like Worcester, Fall River, and New Bedford).
Here’s a link to more Mass. City/Town Election Results:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArYPkyBtYlUKdFhmTkpFMks2d2thRmN5Ukdham1EZWc&hl=en

You can see lots of turnout and candidate numbers, including comparisons of 2006 vs. 2010 turnout and candidate performance for all 351 cities/towns.

For a quick peek, here’s are the numbers for the 25 largest cities/towns, based on the number of registered voters.  You can see the a lot of the general trends of where Coakley lost ground compared to Patrick in 2006, both in turnout drops and a lower percentage of the vote..

.

City/Town

Reg count
as of 10/15/08

2010 Senate General % Turnout

Turnout % Points Change vs. State-wide Average

% Points Turnout Change 2010 vs. 2006

2010 Senate General % Coakley

Coakley % Points Change vs. State-wide Average

2006 General % Patrick

% Points Change 2010 Coakley vs. 2006 Patrick
State-wide 4,220,488 53% -3% 47% 55% -8%
Boston 381,013 40% -13% -5% 69% 22% 72% -3%
Worcester 103,115 37% -16% -8% 52% 5% 68% -16%
Springfield 84,565 34% -19% -6% 61% 14% 67% -6%
Cambridge 64,727 50% -3% -5% 84% 37% 81% 3%
Quincy 63,219 46% -7% -4% 46% -1% 51% -5%
Newton 55,353 63% 10% -1% 67% 20% 70% -3%
New Bedford 55,246 36% -17% -11% 59% 12% 69% -10%
Brockton 52,062 42% -11% -6% 54% 7% 56% -1%
Lowell 51,988 39% -14% -4% 47% 0% 54% -8%
Fall River 49,763 37% -16% -9% 57% 10% 68% -11%
Lynn 48,676 38% -15% -5% 53% 6% 60% -7%
Somerville 44,673 51% -2% -3% 75% 28% 72% 3%
Brookline 41,158 50% -3% 4% 74% 27% 75% -1%
Haverhill 40,980 45% -8% -3% 39% -8% 50% -10%
Lawrence 39,911 25% -28% -13% 65% 18% 62% 3%
Plymouth 37,824 59% 6% 0% 36% -11% 47% -12%
Framingham 36,673 54% 1% -2% 53% 6% 56% -4%
Medford 35,445 56% 3% -3% 57% 10% 57% 0%
Waltham 35,348 49% -4% -3% 49% 2% 54% -5%
Chicopee 34,959 45% -8% -5% 45% -2% 54% -9%
Weymouth 34,564 68% 15% 5% 35% -12% 47% -12%
Taunton 33,316 47% -6% -1% 42% -5% 56% -14%
Peabody 33,224 58% 5% -6% 40% -7% 49% -9%
Barnstable 32,386 62% 9% -2% 38% -9% 39% -2%
Methuen 30,259 47% -6% -6% 34% -13% 45% -11%

.

The conventional wisdom on voter turnout is:
  • Older voters turn out at a higher rate than younger voters.
  • Higher-income voters turn out at a higher rate than lower-income voters.
  • White voters turn out at a higher rate than non-white voters.
  • Voters who have voted frequently in the past turn out at a higher rate than voters who have voted infrequently in the past.
  • These differences are largest in low-turnout elections, and shrink as the turnout increase.  The differences are smallest when the turnout is very high, like in presidential elections, since almost everyone is voting.
Links to other election results and turnout stories:

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

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