City - Thursday, November 5, 2009 12:00 - 11 Comments
Bloomberg’s Narrow Margin of Victory Not a Surprise After All
The surprisingly close race between incumbent Michael Bloomberg and City who-cares Bill Thompson sent the media and blogosphere into a firestorm. “New Yorker’s Rebuke of Bloomberg Sends a Message,” was Mara Gay’s headline at the Atlantic Wire. Even the Times said Bloomberg “No Longer Seems Invincible”. Have any of these groups even looked at the results for more than a second? The numbers should not have been a surprise to anyone, and certainly don’t show the public turning on Bloomberg in droves.
At first glance, of course, it looks like Bloomberg just squeaked through, and he did. He took home 50.6% of the vote, to Thompson’s 46.0%, much less than polls had predicted. The mayor was expected to crush Thompson, but won by just over 4 points. Thompson must have done something right … right?
Actually Thompson took home 506,717 votes, almost exactly the same amount as Fernando Ferrer did in his disastrous run against Bloomberg in 2005. In fact, the difference between the two is less than a percentage point. This year however, turnout was lower overall; 1,100,640 people voted this year, compared with 1,289,935 in 2005. The difference was 189,286. What is striking is how similar that number is to the drop in votes for Bloomberg.
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National - Thursday, November 5, 2009 9:00 - 0 Comments
Other Election Results from Tuesday
Josh and Kenny have already noted the passage of Prop 1 in Maine and Bloomberg’s narrow victory earlier this week, but there were some other noteworthy races going on. Let’s see how they shook out.
New Jersey Gubernatorial: The above video is, of course, the loathsome Chris Christie declaring victory over the also pretty loathsome Democratic incumbent, John Corzine. The polls had been neck and neck therefor a while, but Christie eked out a victory in the end, demonstrating that all the money and fat jokes in the world can’t help an unpopular incumbent during a poor economy. This must have been a disappointment for the White House, which put a lot behind the campaign.
Virginia Gubernatorial: Another Republican victory here, and by a significantly larger margin. But the conventional wisdom is that Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds never had a prayer in the first place (VA’s not a blue stronghold yet), and the grassroots weren’t terribly enthused about him, so no biggie.
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City - Tuesday, November 4, 2008 15:00 - 0 Comments
Where Are All The “I Voted” Stickers?
Not in New York, apparently. I’ve heard all sorts of theories: that so many people voted before 10 am today that they ran out of stickers, that their disappearance is somehow related to the Republicans, etc. But it turns out that New York City has never given voters stickers, according to Gothamist. Luckily, you don’t need any stickers to get your free Starbucks or Ben & Jerry’s, since it turns out that it’s illegal to compensate you for voting anyway.
