Here are some details of the Boston results. Boston is by far the largest city in Massachusetts and I’ve been tracking election results there for 20+ years. This is useful because I can really drill down into neighborhood demographics to make candidate and turnout observations, since most Boston neighborhoods can be clearly-defined by racial make-up and by historical patterns of turnout rates and candidate ideology support (liberal vs. moderate vs. conservative).
Boston numbers reinforce what we already know:
- The strongest Democratic base (non-white voters) voted very strongly for Coakley, but turnout (ie – voter excitement) was relatively low. Message to Democratic Party operative: Don’t ignore your base – Push for turnout in these communities – Democratic candidates will get 90+% of the votes here!
- Moderate-voting white voters had lukewarm support for Coakley, voters that she needed to win.
Below is a chart that summarizes the neighborhood data. Here’s link to a spreadsheet with full neighborhood details:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tM21Wvf03LSOOKZNXF6SeJA&output=html
