Brighton's Russian Jewish Elderly Vote: Menino, Ciommo, Connolly, Murphy, Arroyo

Russian Jewish elderly voters in Brighton (e.g., at Wallingford Road, Ward 21, Precinct 13) have received their directions as to whom to vote for in the preliminary municipal election:

• Mayor: Thomas Menino, incumbent
• District 9 City Councilor: Mark Ciommo, incumbent
• City Councilor-At-Large: John Connolly, incumbent; Stephen Murphy, incumbent; and Felix Arroyo, Jr. (no fourth vote)

These directions usually originate from the precinct boss, Ukrainian-born Naakh Vysoky, and indicate for whom the many elderly residents of the senior housing should vote. A sample ballot for the precinct -- in Russian and filled out with the names of these candidates filled-in -- was obtained from an elderly voter and is shown here [right].

These voting directions normally move up to 500 votes for the favored candidates in the elderly Russian Jewish community in that heavy-voting precinct.

In the 2007 District 9 race, Greg Glennon carried 21/13 in the preliminary, but Mark Ciommo was able to work the vote hard to win the precinct in the final. This year, it appears that Ciommo has a clear edge to rack up these votes.

Given Mayor Menino's influence in that community, and Councilor Ciommo's experience as former director of the Veronica Smith Senior Center, it is not surprising that they are on the voting directions. Councilors-At-Large Connolly and Murphy are not so surprising, either, given their incumbency status.

But why is Felix Arroy Jr., the son of former Councilor-At-Large Felix Arroyo, also getting their vote? I haven't figure out the answer to that one yet.


UPDATE: A Russian speaker has kindly made the following translation of the Cyrillic at the top of the flyer:

The Russia-speaking community calls on you to take part in the elections
On September 22, elections will be held in our city, and we ask you to show your support for the candidates involved with our community. You may address them if you need any help. Please mark in the bulletin the names printed in bold.

Why Ciommo Won and Arroyo Lost in the 2007 Municipal Election

Just before the polls closed last Tuesday night, I posted my predictions for the City Council race. I was pretty much spot-on for the Allston-Brighton District 9 seat (albeit missing the turnout numbers by a lot), but got the wrong odd-man-out in the Councilor-At-Large seat. Here is some analysis of what I thought happened on election day.


Allston-Brighton District 9 City Councilor

I predicted that Mark Ciommo would beat Greg Glennon by at least 900 votes and by at least 57-43% (possibly as high as 60-40%). My prediction couldn't have been closer: Ciommo won by 948 votes by 59.8-39.8%. The full precinct results can be found here.

That said, I screwed up on two points -- one moderate mistake (Wallingford Road) and one a big mistake (voter turnout) -- which magically cancelled each other out to make it look like I hit the lottery.

Turnout. I guessed 6500 voters would turn out, which was at the low end of previous municipal elections. It was far worse at 4745, which was barely over the 4521 votes in the preliminary municipal election.

Why was I so wrong? Not because of the weather. I think that the rank-and-file voters got so little information from the mainstream media (Allston-Brighton TAB excepted), that there was little motivation to vote. I also heard from many voters in the preliminary election who were dissatisfied with the two choices in the final election; I suspect many of them just stayed home, unwilling to be forced to choose.


Wallingford Road. Glennon carried Ward 21, Precinct 13, full of elderly Russian Jewish voters at the Wallingford Road housing project, over Ciommo 303-142 in the preliminary election. I predicted that he would add to that lead by +200 votes, but the forces of arm-twisting pushed it the other way: Ciommo won 333-242, giving Ciommo a net +252 votes. I blew the vote difference by 452. Oops.

But this is a really, really big story in the neighborhood. Tim Schofield told host Joe Heisler on the Talk of the Neighborhood show that the Russians mostly listen to former State Representative Brian Golden and Mayor Menino; to that I add a likely third party, the Mark Alford-Pat Galvin-(and-his-brother) trifecta. Golden, Alford, and Pat Galvin all supported Glennon -- and Ciommo holds progressive social positions incompatible the conservative Russian voters, at least in the conventional wisdom -- so this means that the Mayoral power in A-B is now at the point that it trumps all else in specific cases of arm-twisting (like Wallingford in this election).

The other big feature of the Wallingford Road vote is that it actually didn't matter in the election. Ciommo could have won without a single vote from the Russians. In looking back on this year's election, the message we should all take away is that the Russian vote can impact a preliminary (or three-way) election in an important way by determining the second-place finisher, but their strength cannot dominate over the powerful base of a long-time resident.


Oak Square battleground. I predicted that several precincts in the Oak Square neighborhood would represent battlegrounds between the long-term Brighton residents (Ciommo's base) and socially conservative Irish Catholics (Golden's base, and hence Glennon's). Many people in the neighborhood have one foot firmly in each camp, so predicting how they would swing was the parlor game of the election.

Ciommo carried the combined Ward 22, Precincts 7, 11, and 13 in the preliminary, with Glennon and Schofield in a virtual tie for second. Schofield's voters generally swung heavily for Ciommo, regardless of his endorsement, but this was the one neighborhood where that pattern might have been broken.

In the final election, Ciommo won 22/7, 22/10, and 22/11 heavily, and barely nudged Glennon 102-98 in more conservative 22/13. I predicted, "if Ciommo carries 7, 10, and 11 with big margins, then it's lights out." That it was.

My model was that Schofield's supporters went 80-20% for Ciommo, Selvig's 65-35%, and Hanlon's 50-50%. Using that model on Ward 22, Precinct 7, for example, my prediction was Ciommo over Glennon by 137 to 61 votes; the actual result was 131-67, off by six, but within the margin of error of 14 votes (for 198 cast).


Ward 21 Progressive Precincts. I predicted that you should forget-about-it without a strongly identified progressive in the case (like Schofield). Ward 21, Precinct 8 actually doubled their turnout over the preliminary election -- from 1.6 to 3.2%. In the end, the progressive precincts still didn't show up.


Summary. The bosses of Ward 22 were able to get Councilor Jerry McDermott elected in 2002 (he is the cousin to the Galvins, after all), even though McDermott claimed after the election that he was not the Mayor's candidate. (Ciommo told me earlier in the year that he disputes that characterization of the 2002 race, however, since the Mayor did not formally endorse a candidate.) In 2007, however, the Ward 22 bosses no longer appear to be able to throw an Allston-Brighton election to their favorite candidate -- although they can get him a second-place finish and into the finals.

Councilor-elect Ciommo enjoyed powerful support from middle-aged men who chose to stay in Brighton to raise their families here. He won out over the younger, more transient constituencies -- like former Representative Golden and lame duck Councilor McDermott -- who leave town with their young families.

Long-time Brighton residents and the Mayor's influence ended up winning over the ward bosses and families in transition through the neighborhood.


Boston City Councilor-At-Large Race

While many in the city thought that the race for the fourth seat among the Boston City Councilors-At-Large was between Councilor Stephen Murphy and challenger John Connolly, there were many soothsayers predicting Councilor Felix Arroyo to be the odd man out.

I called the race a toss-up until the last moment, when I thought that Connolly's strategic blunder of sending out the anonymous attack mailings would cost him enough votes to lose out on fourth place. I was obviously wrong, and the Arroyo predictions were right.

Why did Arroyo lose? The pundits have rained in with some pretty convincing reasons: low voter turnout working against minority candidates; Arroyo raised little money, while Connolly raised around ten times as much; Arroyo didn't campaign very hard or send out many mailings, while Connolly campaigned like crazy (and sent out quite a few flyers!); Arroyo's record on attendance at City Council meetings and hearings; etc. None of the reasons seems enough by itself, but, taken together, they seem plenty to explain why he got around 15% fewer votes than Connolly.

This year's City Council election is an important one for data mining purposes in the future, because it shows clearly how low voter turnout impacts voting from ward-to-ward. Connolly's West Roxbury Ward 20, for example, voted disproportionately higher than the rest of the city.


The election numbers, plus analysis on a ward-by-ward basis, for the Councilor-At-Large race can be found at Matt O'Malley's website.  He ran, albeit unsuccessfully, in 2005 for Councilor-at-Large, so he knows the ins and outs of all the different neighborhoods and their voting trends.

Watching the Precinct Numbers Come In for the District 9 Race

As the election results updated this evening, they did not show which precincts were coming in. But it was clear to me by a jump between N=9 and N=16 that Wallingford Road's Ward 21, Precinct 13 was included.

Going through the numbers: Wallingford Road split between Ciommo and Glennon, but was leaning to Ciommo.

Why? The top three candidates -- Ciommo, Glennon, and Schofield -- combined for 3621 votes overall in 27 precincts. Assume 600 of those came from Ward 21, Precinct 13, leaving 3021 in 26 precincts, or 116/precinct. Six of the precincts in the jump from N=9 to 16 should have carried 696 votes for the three candidates, but all seven carried 1260, meaning that the seventh precinct -- Wallingford Road -- came in with 564 votes. (Close enough to my assumption of 600 votes.)

Who did the Wallingford Road votes break to? I just made a simple model guess of 260-260-44 for Wallingford Road's precinct vote, removed those from the overall numbers, then used that 26-precinct overall vote to estimate the vote for six of the seven precincts in the N=9 to 16 jump. Removing those six precincts gives iteration number one for the Wallingford Road vote, fairly close to my initial model guess. So I just iterate through the procedure again, narrowing in on the final answer. Pretty close to convergence with just one iteration.

Answer: the precinct went something like 286-221-58 for Ciommo-Glennon-Schofield, i.e., a split vote leaning Ciommo. Based on these numbers, the ward boss, Naakh Visoky, must not have endorsed a candidate. The voters followed their consciences between Ciommo, the director of a senior center who delivers care to them daily, and Glennon, the socially conservative candidate in the race who they know through beloved former State Representative Brian Golden.

Without Wallingford Road, Ciommo would have still made the final with Glennon. But if the Wallingford Road had gone as a bloc to Ciommo instead of splitting with Glennon, then Wednesday we might be starting a re-count for second place between Glennon and Schofield.

Wallingford Road's Ward 21, Precinct 13 therefore determined second place in this election, not first.


OK, OK, OK... I'll wait for the precinct-by-precinct numbers to come in before setting that statement in stone.

Predictions for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council Election

I am putting up this post a few minutes before the polls close tonight. This post does not represent any endorsement, preference, or bias. It is only my best guess at who will win this race based on past election overall results, voting trends by precinct, exuberance of voters, perception of how well candidates have connected with voters, etc. I am no expert on polls, precincts, get-out-the-vote-mobiles, and the like. I just talk to a lot of people, whenever I can, and try to see whose politics they latch onto.

If I haven't offered enough disclaimers yet, let me add another: I may become the silliest looking, ignorant goon after the results come in tonight. But I'll put my predictions out there because, hey, it's worth a shot. And you can all heckle me about my errors... until November 6.


Predictions for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council Preliminary Election

Summary: This election is going to be damn close.

Total Number of Votes Cast? There were a bit over 3200 votes in the 2005 municipal preliminary and 6000 votes in the 2005 municipal election, while there were around 3750 in Rep. Moran's district for the special primary election in 2005; Rep. Moran and Rep. Honan's districts roughly split City Council District 9 in half. This race has so much interest, I'd expect a good turnout of at least 5000 for this municipal primary election -- if not significantly more.

Wallingford Road. On Saturday morning, Mark Alford joined Patrick Galvin in planting a Greg Glennon sign on his front yard. Since I've never seen a Bill Galvin sign on Bill Galvin's lawn, I can't imagine its lack of a Glennon sign means anything. The Galvin-Alford-Galvin trifecta is signalling to the Wallingford Road voter bloc, as well as other long-term Galvin supporters in Brighton, which way to vote.

But Glennon was a no-show for two candidate forums last week, and no one could get hard confirmation where he was. The most common rumors were a fundraiser on one day and visiting Wallingford Road on the other, but I must emphasize that those are unconfirmed reports -- Glennon hasn't been answering his phone when I call. If the string-pullers are pushing Glennon, then why might he have been spending time over there working on the vote?

I am betting on no uniform voting-bloc coming out of Wallingford Road today. Instead, the elderly, mostly Russian Jews, are voting their consciences not their ward boss, breaking 65-25-10% for Glennon-Mark Ciommo-Tim Schofield. Schofield? Councilor Sam Yoon pulled 150 at-large votes in that precinct in 2005 (with 4-way voting), so Schofield may pick up half of them. Glennon is their comfortable choice because of his socially conservative views, particularly on gay rights and abortion, while Ciommo has been vocal in playing to the left in this campaign. The precinct delivered 420 and 631 District 9 votes in the 2005 preliminary and municipal election, but 858 for state representative in 2006 general election; expect at least 600 votes for this turnout-heavy precinct (Ward 21, Precinct 13) in a well-publicized race.

Institutional Expansion Vote. This voting bloc has firmed up into a strong contingent since this City Council seat was last open. The neighborhoods are well-informed and increasingly well-organized. Think of at least 300 activists (including spouses) involved near BC and 500 around Harvard, and you've got quite a bloc of educated, civic-minded people who have far higher rates of turnout than the general population.

Alex Selvig's "protest candidacy" might seem the odds-on favorite, but a little nugget argues otherwise: an online poll I had up in late July (until one candidate sent hordes of online voters to the polls for two hours, completely reversing the results) showed Schofield winning the internet-active crowd handily over Selvig. Rosie Hanlon picked up a handful of votes, but Ciommo and Glennon were nearly zero. Amongst this crowd, I hear Schofield's name mentioned most. Selvig's bump up and down the last few days won't change it much at all: his supporters are loyal, and virtually everyone had decided on their candidate well before this. Want to see if Schofield can trump Selvig among this crowd? Watch the results come in for Ward 22, Precinct 8 (BC neighbors) or 22/1 (Harvard neighbors and Glennon's home) -- and that Glennon won't carry his own precinct. I am betting 45-30-15-5-5 Schofield-Selvig-Hanlon-Glennon-Ciommo, where Glennon's votes mostly come from the Galvin-Alford-Galvin trifecta and their friends.

Irish Catholic Stronghold. The area near to the now-closed Our Lady of Presentation (aka Presentation School) consists of moderate, and educated, voters in a stable neighborhood of owner-occupied housing twice the A-B average. It was former Councilor Jerry McDermott's stronghold, and will be the primary battle-ground between Schofield and Ciommo. If Schofield can battle to a near-tie with Ciommo, look for Schofield to run away overall. Votes to watch are Ward 22, Precinct 7 (to the south) and 22/13 (to the north). Predict 55-45 Ciommo-Schofield. Note that Hanlon does well with the Catholic vote across Brighton, but this is hard to tell from individual precinct results.

Small Business Owners. They just love Rosie. One after another tells of a story about how she helped them do a promo to drum up business. The problem is that there's just not that many votes available here, particularly since some live out of the district. There's no way to track this vote via precincts; we would need a true exit poll. There may be 200 votes here, and it'll break heavily for Hanlon.

Elderly / Seniors. Some of the senior vote is already accounted for in the Wallingford Road precinct, but there are still many more in the B'nai Brith housing area, as well as in houses they've occupied for 30-50 years (or more). Ciommo, Ciommo, Ciommo. If they managed to meet Hanlon, she has a shot at a good piece of the group. Look for 60-25-15 for Ciommo-Hanlon-Schofield in Ward 21, Precinct 12 -- which carries a number of likely voters second only to Wallingford Road in 21/13, so a big plus for Ciommo.

"Old-boys", but not quite seniors. Ciommo's base, and the ones who put up all those lawn signs in the first few days of the election, are 40-55 year-old guys who used to play ball with Ciommo. They can't imagine doing anything but voting for him. Three hundred lawn signs deliver at least 300 votes in this demographic. They are scattered all around town, but look for their votes in Ciommo's old stomping grounds in Ward 22, Precinct 11 in the vicinity of Hobart Park. The problem for Ciommo is that this kind of precinct -- parallel to A-B in general -- has been steadily moving out to the suburbs, leaving a demographic with a plurality of younger people (one-third) in the 25-34 age bracket. If Ciommo has trouble in 22/11, then he'll have trouble overall in A-B -- a direct result of the nature of our neighborhood's demographic trends working against his base.

Hispanic/Brazilian. This constituency is highly under-represented, since many of the Brazilians, for example, move to the suburbs once they naturalize and set down roots. If Selvig could find these voters, they're his because of his language ability. He must've had a flyer written in Spanish... but I never saw it. Probably a couple of hundred votes for Selvig if he is making a concerted effort to knock on doors and walk people to the polls. Sadly, I doubt the turnout side will happen. Hispanic residents are 14% overall in A-B, but look to a place like Ward 22, Precinct 2 for a higher concentration near 20%; note that the Hispanic vote will get mixed up with the institutional expansion vote in precincts like this one. (Note to everyone: I can't figure out where the largest voting turnout of Hispanic voters will be... I am only stabbing in the dark based on census data, which is not the same. So this is one subject on which I expect ridicule!)

Voter Exuberance. Schofield gets this because he is very appealing to the young crowd; no one else has made a dent in that constituency.

Well-Run Campaigns. Glennon stands out for an apparent organizational collapse in the last few weeks: two missed public events; phone calls not answered or returned, no phone number listed on his website, unlisted home phone number; useless push polling in the last couple of weeks, instead of real phone calling; sloppy campaign finance form indicating lack of organizational support; etc. Ciommo's organization -- even though apparently farmed out as consulting work at Sage Systems (i.e., 90% of his expenditures were for "consulting"), and being run in a professional manner -- showed a series of mis-steps across the spectrum: failing to buy his own web domain prior to sending it out on cards; taking three months to put up a website; making more problems than he solved while trying to put out fires on gay marriage and domestic partnerships; giving excessively brief answers to questions and questionnaires; pitching himself as a progressive while simultaneously trying to appeal to the conservative Russian Jewish elderly vote; etc. But they answer their phones, and make a lot of personal connections, so I expect organizational issues to be only a relatively small hit.

Schofield, on the other hand, has run a smooth and well-oiled political machine, and Hanlon comes in a close second. Selvig's organization improved as the campaign went along, but lack of visible supporters outside the first candidates forum, no manager until well into the campaign, the need to appeal to an online forum for warm bodies, etc., meant that he was catching up a lot of lost ground. "Protest candidates" aren't supposed to be about smoothly-run campaigns, anyway.


Conclusion: Schofield ekes out a small victory by 200 votes; watch his performance in the stable, owner-occupied neighborhoods as the bell-wether of his overall performance to determine if he squeaks past Ciommo or beats him soundly. Second-place is too close to call between Ciommo and Glennon, both in the neighborhood of 1500 votes. Glennon pulls off second-place (or a close third) if, and only if, Naakh Visoky decides to deliver a full voting bloc to him; otherwise, Glennon falls to third, if not fourth, because he's just not carrying strong votes in the more moderate areas (fought over by Ciommo and Schofield) and the institutional border regions (fought over by Schofield and Selvig). Hanlon comes in fourth with around 900 votes (or pulls off third if the Russians endorse or lean Ciommo). First-time candidate Selvig garners a respectable 400, a result of hard work in places many other candidates didn't tread, and thinks about running in a future election.

Catch the drift here? The Russian vote determines second place, not first. I'm not sure they're going to be happy when they realize they aren't in the driver's seat anymore in A-B elections.