As if you need any reminders about close elections (See:
HoCo Council, District One, Democratic Primary), I examined the last five
General Election outcomes for the Howard County Board of Education. Nothing better than armchair psephology.
This post is a bit long, but bear with me, and there are
some key takeaways at the end.
Factoring in the
number of votes, expressed as a percentage of the overall turnout that cycle, between
the “last place winner” (the person who finished 3rd of 3, or 4th
of 4, depending on the year) and the person who placed in the next position,
there was a less-than-5% margin of victory in all five cases.
In reverse chronological order:
In 2016, Mavis Ellis was 3rd and won a seat on
the Board of Education with 58,431 votes.
Janet Siddiqui, an incumbent, finished fourth and was thus voted off the
BoE. She received 53,762 votes. A 4,579 vote difference may seem like a
fairly comfortable margin of victory, even for a County the size of HoCo, but
let’s take a look at the turnout. In
that General Election, a total of 163,668 voters cast their ballots. 4,579/163,668 = only 2.8% of the overall
turnout. Had a couple thousand votes
switched between the two and/or Siddiqui managed to convince some additional
voters (including former Siddiqui voters from previous cycles) to make her
their first, second, or even third choice, Siddiqui might have pulled out a
razor-thin W. Remember, there were a
total of 345,781 BoE votes cast in that election (between the 6 candidates on
the ballot + write-ins). That amounts to
an average of 2.1 BoE votes cast per voter. Under-votes also make a
difference. In that context, a 4,579
vote difference is hardly a chasm. Siddiqui actually obtained more
Absentee/Provisional votes than Ellis, and secured only 1,390 fewer Early Voter
ballots than Ellis…but lost on election day by 3,514 votes.
In 2014, the relative gap between the last winner and the
top, well, non-winner was somewhat wider, a 4,447 vote difference out of only
106,158 votes (oh yes, the low-turnout 2014 general election…we all recall
vividly the horrors of it). In this
case, it was Christine O’Connor (37,561 votes) finishing ahead of Dan Furman
(33,114 votes). As a percentage of the
overall turnout, that works out to a 4.2% margin (the highest of the five most
recent BoE General Elections). Again,
the average voter cast their ballot for 2.6 BoE candidates that year. Had that figure been slightly higher, with
more Furman voters…and/or had a couple thousand voters opted for Furman instead
of O’Connor as one of their up-to-four choices, he would have been elected. Furman also ran only a few hundred votes
behind O’Connor amongst Early Voters and 133 behind her with
Absentee/Provisional voters, but trailed her by a larger margin among Election
Day voters.
In 2012, the difference between 3rd (Win) and 4th
(Lose) was 3,558 votes, with Ellen Flynn Giles (50,908) and Bob Ballinger
(47,350) in those respective positions.
That 3,558 vote total represents only 2.3% of the overall turnout
(154,375 votes overall). Giles’
incumbency definitely helped enable her to secure re-election. Interestingly, Ballinger was behind Giles by
only 209 votes among Election Day voters and by 425 votes among
Absentee/Provisional votes, but lost by a wider margin among Early Voters.
The other two cycles
are particularly interesting.
In 2010, the difference between 4th (thrill of
victory) and 5th (agony of defeat) was a mere 393 votes out of
108,423 cast, which represents only 0.36% of the vote separating those two
candidates. In this race, Cindy
“Landslide” Vaillancourt garnered 30,990 votes, slightly ahead of David
Proudfoot (30,597). Proudfoot actually
received more Early Votes than Vaillancourt, but obtained fewer among Election
Day and Absentee/Provisional voters. It
is worth noting that the candidates on either side of them in the vote total
column also finished with not-too-dissimilar numbers. Brian Meshkin had only a few hundred votes
more than Vaillancourt (31,707 total) while Bob “Tough Luck” Ballinger was
about a thousand votes behind Proudfoot (29,627) with Leslie Kornreich trailing
him by a small margin (with 29,375 votes).
Even the last-place finisher was not that far removed from the rest of
the field, with Larry Walker placing eighth with 27,546 votes. Walker’s position is of particular note since
he placed third, yes, third in the primary election that year. Noteworthy indeed.
Finally, in 2008, the difference was a scant 689 votes out
of 146,304 cast (0.47% of the total). In
this case, it was Allen Dyer with 54,148 votes outpolling the next-place
finisher, Diane Butler (with 53,459 votes).
Butler garnered more Absentee votes than Dyer, but lost on Election Day
by around a thousand votes.
In 2008 and 2010
alike, we are talking about a shift of a handful of voters, per-precinct,
changing the outcome.
So what does this all mean?
Candidates cannot
rely on the support of external organizations, even powerful and popular ones,
to ensure victory. While running on
the Apple Ballot is extremely helpful in BoE primaries, it does not guarantee
success in general elections (in 2014: see Dan Furman & Zaneb Beams; in
2012: see David Gertler & Jackie Scott).
And with Hogan pulling his shenanigans this year with his Rotten Apple,
will voters have doubts in their minds when they see the Official Apple Ballot,
thus possibly tarnishing its value a bit this cycle? Stay tuned.
With no incumbents on
the ballot this time around, I am anticipating a more even distribution of
votes. The joys of parity. Without any mortal-lock heavies, that means
it is quite likely that the gap between 4th and 5th
place…or between 3rd and 6th place for that matter, might
be relatively small. Perhaps one
candidate pops head-and-shoulders above the others, but with voters facing up
to four choices (and the average voter marking their ballot for, say, 2.5 of
them, with no widely-known and well-liked incumbent on the ballot) I don’t
think more than one will pull away from the rest of the field. Frankly, I would not be surprised if the
election results for 2018 are similar to those of 2010 in terms of vote
distribution. It’s a cliché, but so much
comes down to turnout, turnout, turnout.
Early voting, Absentee voting, and Election Day voting.
You can’t assume a
strong primary election showing means a strong general election showing,
especially if voter turnout in the General is higher than it was in 2014. If one has deep support, that is great…but it
better be wide enough to appeal to voters who show up for general elections in
mid-terms, but not necessarily primaries.
GOTV strategies (and related
communications) should reflect this reality.
While I have some thoughts on the likely order of finish, I
believe that six of the eight campaigns have a serious shot at a top four
finish…and it is not inconceivable that one (or both???) of the other two, albeit
under some highly unlikely circumstances, could somehow find a way to win. That said, anyone who tells you that this
race is a done deal has no idea what they are talking about. Historically, the margins have been close
enough to be impacted by October communications, by interactions with and
between voters at their homes, at campaign events, or at polling centers, by
late-breaking events, by the last-minute voting booth choices of voters, and by
the decisions of some to just not cast a ballot this time around.
We may be in for a long night of counting. Be prepared.
In solidarity.
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