Antoine Clarke podcast on BrianMicklethwait.com

My Tuesday podcast about Massachusetts and what the social media means for elections, with some thoughts about libertarian parties in the UK and the USA can be found here.

Senate election in Massachusetts results

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has not yet officially declared the results of the January 19th special election for Senator.

It turns out the best web campaign won.

Here are the results as reported in the Boston Globe, which has a neat map and town-by-town table here.


Scott Brown (Republican) 1,168,107 votes (52%)
Martha Coakley (Democrat) 1,058,682 votes (48%)
Joe Kennedy (Libertarian) 22,237 votes (1%)

Turnout was 54%. The swing to the Republicans was 21.75% (that's very big).

This compares with the late Edward Kennedy's two previous victories as the Democratic party candidate in 2006 and 2000.

Indicators

I like comparing election forecasts from politicians, people who are considering voting but don't watch the political programmes on TV, opinion pollsters, market traders and bookies. The people I never ask, except for entertainment are policy analysts, because they seem to be the only people more clueless than politicians at recognising when they're about to take a good kicking in an election.

One of my funnest moments in politics was sitting cross-legged in a Bayswater flat calling half of Kent's parliamentary constituencies as Labour gains on the evening of May 1, 1997 at the same moment as a buffoon (employed as a special adivsor to a worthless government minister) ostentatiously waved his brick-like mobile phone to ring up someone called "Charles", (he pronounced it "Chaaarlz" in a strangled yet booming Hooray-Henry voice) to wail "Whaaatz haaaapuning?"

I think he wanted to know why the voters weren't magically coming out to keep him in free lunches for another four years. Only a few minutes before, he'd been plotting with other "well-connected, inside-track" political "experts" on how his Tory Party was going to do deals to keep Mr Blair out of Downing Street.

The fact that I won three bets that night, a £75 sweepstake, a £5 where I'd offered 10 to 1 odds against John Major winning 17 months beforehand and a £20 personal bet that Michael Portillo would fall, also made for my only truly successful gambling experience.

The more people were connected to "the centre" of British politics, the less they really believed what actually happened. If they'd had a chat with people like the number one cashier at a high-street bank in Cricklewood about her husband's business, or thought for a minute about how many mini-cab drivers at the time had previously been self-employed, upwardly-mobile supporters of Thatcherism, alarm bells might have rung.

To be fair, the problem was not all on the government side: the opposition Labour did not dare believe the scale of its victory. Five years previously, in April 1992, one life-long Labour supporter with a relative in Parliament was so convinced, as were all her colleagues, that Neil Kinnock would win, especially in the Westminster North constituency, that champagne was being drunk as soon as the polls closed.

The AEI/Brooking study of indicators, titled Partisan Impacts on the Economy: Evidence from Prediction Markets and Close Elections, by Erik Snowberg, Justin Wolfers, Eric Zitzewitz, finds that markets are good at predicting the effects of elections and acting swiftly on information as it emerges.

The Wisdom of Crowds, an excellent little book by James Surowiecki, examined the Iowa Electronic Markets and other indicators of aggregated knowledge and judgement. I recently gave a talk on the subject, an audio recording is available here.

The key message I take from this, is that all the election polling in the world is wrong, because the wrong question is being asked. Instead of trying to find a demographic sample and asking "Who do you WANT to win?" or "Who WILL you vote for?" my impression is that the correct method is to take a random sample, not weighted for demographic representativeness (so it should be quite a bit cheaper).

The question to ask is: "Leaving aside who you WANT to win the next election, who do you think WILL win"?

++Republican win in Massachusetts++

Best places to follow the Massachusetts count? UPDATED

Due to five hour time difference, I'm not liveblogging the Massachusetts special election count for the next few hours.

So here are some good places for readers who live in more favourable timezones or who are prepared for an all-nighter:

Fivethirtyeight Especially because it has a live Twitter feed.

If you're a sadist and the Democrats are losing, much wailing and gnashing of the teeth here. ;-)

N.B. Expect Nate Silver, who runs 538 to get inside news from the Democratic camp.


Drudge Report is updating the count on its main page. Seems pretty quick.

RealClearPolitics (conservative) looks to have a neat live blog going. If you're a Democrat and want to see GOP fans cry, this could be a good place to start if your woman wins.

There doesn't seem to be an official results page on the Commonwealth of Massachsetts website yet, but I think it will be on this page or linked to it.

Intrade appears to have crashed, leaving people who wished to make last minute bets potentially in the lurch. If it comes back on tonight, check to see if the contract moves below 70% for Scott Brown or above 30% for Martha Coakley. That would suggest that the Democrats might pull off an incredible escape. We'll see.

UPDATE: Barring something very odd, I'm calling this a Republican gain.

How to do it

David Axelrod, the Senior Advisor to US President Barack Obama, and who knows a thing or two about elections, told a gathering of reporters before voting ended in Massachusetts yesterday, that "he thought Brown ran a very good campaign, saying that 'as a practitioner, my hat's off to him'." (AP via Breitbart)

Leaving aside the wisdom of making such a statement when your own party's candidate is presumably still fighting for her political life, this endorsement of Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Massachusetts' campaigning skills, is praise indeed.

I've touched on this over at Fivethirtyeight.com in the comments to this article, as well as in two postings yesterday [here and here].

Over at Intrade, if you think there's a chance that Democratic candidate Martha Coakley has in fact won the election, a $50 bet right now will net you $250 (you can buy a contract at 19.9). I admit, if I'd backed the Republican a week ago, I'd be sorely tempted to hedge by taking this up.

More on Twitter

"I've seen it translate into dollars. I've seen it translate into traffic. I've seen it translate into media news stories," he said. "How that translates into votes, I don't think people have figured that out yet."
Justin Hart, director of new media for the Senate campaign of Chuck DeVore (Republican) in California.

Over at RealClearPolitics (which doesn't have a share button for its Politics Nation section yet) a good article with some interesting quotes about how 2010 is shaping up to be the year when election campaigns are fought and lost on Twitter.

Here's a summary:

On December 28, Brown announced what became the signature force behind his campaign, his pledge to be a 41st vote against President Obama's national health care reform legislation. Accompanying that news on his Twitter feed was this notation: #41stvote. Referred to as a hashtag, those nine characters became a mechanism to attract like-minded activists and identify new ones. Reflecting an enthusiasm gap not just in the state but among national politicos, Brown now boasts more than 11,000 Twitter followers, compared to barely 4,000 for Democrat Martha Coakley.

That following paid dividends last Monday when, aided by a strong Twitter campaign from Brown and dozens of his newest online advocates, the Republican smashed a fundraising goal of $500,000 for a one-day "money bomb," generating instead well beyond $1 million. That total from just 24 hours was well beyond what he had raised in the entire previous fundraising period. Where there had been skepticism before about what kind of impact Twitter could have, the Brown campaign is making a convincing case.

There's more:

"When I started, everyone joked that I was the director of shiny objects," said John Randall, director of new media for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "This is not a shiny object. This is industry standard now. It's definitely something that I point out to all the campaigns."

And:

In Virginia's gubernatorial campaign, Republicans credit an effective use of social media by the campaign of Bob McDonnell to respond to potentially damaging claims coming from traditional media sources, most obviously the Washington Post's coverage of "Thesis-gate." The Republican Governors Association found based on its polling that many more voters said they were getting their news about the race online, and among that subset, their won handily - 50-38 in New Jersey, and 62-38 in Virginia.

"We realized there is a changing phenomenon. More folks, particularly young people in that demographic that frankly our party has not done that well in the past, are getting their information there," McDonnell said at an RGA conference after the campaign.

Finally, Jordan Raynor, a Florida-based Republican online strategist [blog, Twitter], said: "It has never been easier to be as influential as you can be today. Information is cheap. Information is easier to produce. And if you have a quality message, it's never been cheaper to get out."

Massachusetts Special Election

Sometimes, one should back a hunch. Always, one should write it down.

A week ago, I took my first look at the election campaigns of the two main party candidates for the Special Election in Massachusetts, USA, to replace the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

My first impression, especially given how the Democrats had steamrollered the Republicans at the 2008 presidential and other federal elections that year, was that Scott Brown was running an effective online campaign. His Democratic party opponent, was not.

Had I backed up my gut feeling that I could see Lt Col Brown (of the Massachusetts National Guard) causing an upset on Intrade, I could have made a 630% profit, even if today's vote went against him (as of writing, the Intrade index puts Brown at 73.5 as a SELL, which given a 10 BUY last week gives a very nice return).

I even had the excuse: I gave a talk here on Monday 11th about the Wisdom of Crowds [audio recording here] and it is astonishing how good prediction markets can be.

The election itself is happening in interesting circumstances. First, the Democrats need to hold all their Senate seats if they wish to prevent the minority Republicans from filibustering proposed legislation. Assuming the voting blocks hold in the US Congress' upper chamber, 60 out of the 100 senators are required to pass a "cloture" vote (what we in the UK call a "guillotine" [heh]).

Second, over a third of the Senate is up for re-election this year. Under normal conditions, every two years 33 or 34 senators are elected in November, but this year the number will be 36, because New York state will have a second vacancy, caused (to cut a long story short) by Hillary Clinton's nomination as the US Secretary of State last year, and Delaware will have one vacancy caused by Joe Biden's elevation to the position of Vice-President.

This would normally be a difficult year for the Republicans in the Senate. Because the class up for election was voted in 2004, the GOP would be defending 19 seats (one defected to the Democrats last year so its 18). The Democrats would be defending 15, and these held off the 2004 tide so they wouldn't be easy to pick off. The GOP, demoralised and short of funds after 2006 and 2008, might have struggled to hold onto gains made six years ago.

The extra Senate contests, all being Democrat seats, offer opportunities for something to go wrong for the governing party, at the very least diluting some of the campaign efforts.

Third, health care legislation. The Massachusetts election has become at least in part, a referendum on President Barack Obama's plans for introducing mandatory health insurance. This is not the place to debate the issue, but it has drawn considerable criticism, from left and right, although often for contrary reasons. Massachusetts has its own statewide health insurance scheme, which to some extent may make some local people ask "why do we need a federal one as well?" Without the 60th Democrat (or Democrat-leaning) senator in place, the health care legislation will probably not be carried without some dubious and unpopular machination (e.g. pretending the legislation is a finance bill, or refusing to let the Republican winner be "certified" until AFTER the vote in the next few weeks).

Coming a year after President Obama's inauguration, in a state he carried by over 25 percentage points, where no Republican Senator has been elected since 1972, it will be hard not to see a defeat for Martha Coakley as a vote against the President. The damage limitation is already underway, with one leftist blogger claiming: "Coakley is arguably a worse candidate than either Jon Corzine or Creigh Deeds [respectively, the losers in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections last November], which is quite a feat to pull off."

For an election watcher, who is less interested in the politics, the lesson that looks like being learned is that clever use of online tools can compensate for lack of funds at the start of an election campaign. More than that, the buzz created by online engagement can generate supporters [here and here] and donations, not just for a national figure like Barack Obama.

I think we can look forward soon to the day when both sides in a contest will use Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube or other as yet untried cheap or free tools as their primary means of engagement. It might not be in the USA, but I'm looking forward to covering it.

A few words about the Libertarian candidate for those of my readers who like to know how the pro-freedom candidate is doing. Joe Kennedy is not to be confused with the former Democrat senator. The main coverage he's got is Democrats desperately trying to make sure no one thinks he's a relative of the departed Ted Kennedy. I've been there twice as a minor party candidate in a contest one has no hope of winning, so I respect the effort.

But there is no excuse for the ropey (that would be "amateur" for non-English readers) website, or basic errors like offering "dave[at]joekennedyforsenate.com" as one's Facebook contact details. I think we can appreciate that the candidate is not going to respond to random emails sent to the campaign, but this is one instance where either "info@campaignname.org" or the full name of the campaign manager "karl.rove@camapaignname.org" would be better. In the case of a third party candidate, I'd also consider whether one couldn't try to answer a decent proportion of the emails coming in, so perhaps it should be "joe[at]joekennedyforsenate.org", with someone filtering out the spam and timewasters.

One tool that's been pretty well used by the Libertarian Party on this occasion is Twitter: http://twitter.com/joek4Senate . From September last year, this online tool was used to gather together supporters, collect nomination paper signatories and raise campaign funding. I think a little effort could have put into personalising the page but it passes.

Less democratic than Bonaparte

The new office of European President has been filled by a cabal of national politicians with the result that Herman van Rompuy, Belgium's Prime Minister, has been "elected."

It's worth noting just how undemocratic this choice is.

When Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to declare himself the First Consul of France (and dictator of most of what is now the European Union), he held a plebiscite. If he had lost, he would have been finished. Unlike the Lisbon Treaty.

True there were no alternative candidates allowed. Also true, I doubt if anyone would seriously argue the voting was "free and fair." But there was at least the possibilty that a protest could be made.

Not with Mr van Rompuy.

If Belgium's Prime Minister were remotely concerned with the problem that he was chosen by fewer than 27 people out the E.U.'s 500 million citizens, he would refuse the post or insist on an election.

I've started a group on Facebook called "He's not my (European) President" to call for the post to be filled by one of two methods: either a proper electoral college, such as that used in U.S. presidential elections, or one person one vote across the whole of the E.U.. The French presidential election system would seem eminently reasonable, although if I were Belgian or Maltese, I might prefer a U.S.-style solution.

We've got a European head of state now. I don't see why it needs to be selected by a less democratic process than that for China or Iran.

Post mortem on U.S. election night

The gubernatorial elections [here {very good map of New Jersey voting} and here] in the U.S. states of New Jersey and Virginia have produced two gains for the Republican Party from the Democrats, supporting opinion polls that suggested the opposition is able to mobilise a majority of voters on the issues of the economy, excessive public spending and health care reform.

One problem for the Republican Party is that the wrong lessons could easily be "learned" from the events yesterday. As Scott Rasmussen wrote recently, there is a bigger untapped conservative vote in America that isn't going to back the Democrats and doesn't vote Republican, than there is a Republican-inclined "centre."

So the conventional wisdom of widening appeal by going for independents doesn't work, as the New York State's 23rd congressional election result indicates: the Conservative Party candidate scored over 45% of the vote.

If the Democrats can hold this district in November next year when the 435 seats in the House of Representatives come up for election, they will have reasonable cause for cheer. Also if the Republican Party thinks that its mistake was not giving enough backing Dede Scozzafava, an ACORN supporting "moderate," and that picking candidates from the top is the way forward in the 21st century (watch out in Florida next year!), then the Democrats could even emerge stronger from last night's voting.

The immediate practical consequence of the two gains for the G.O.P. are that the number of Republican Governors has risen to 23 with 27 Democrats remaining. Both New Jersey and Virginia were states that voted for Barack Obama and the Republicans had been fading in these East Coast states. The meme that the Republicans are being driven into the Deep South and the less populated Mountain States has been dented by this election.

For those interested in the New York mayoral election: as expected Bloomberg was re-elected as a nominal Republican. The voting breakdown can be found here, with an interesting graphic showing the various districts of NYC and how polarised they are. To give one example, there are two districts on the Rockaway Peninsula in Long Island which are split as one safe Republican (district 23) and one safe Democrat (district 31).

Late forecast for US election night (Updated)

UPDATE: NY 23:

Candidate Party Votes (%)
Bill Owens Democrat 47,826 49.1%
Doug Hoffman Conservative 44,349 45.5
Dede Scozzafava Republican 5,294 5.4
67% reporting

As of time of writing (03:54 GMT), the gap has been narrowing. Scozzafava's votes are thought to mostly be absentee ballots which would have been posted before she withdrew.


UPDATE: Local media calling NJ for Republican candidate Christie.

UPDATE: Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate has conceded in Virginia. President Obama is said by the White House Press Office to not be watching returns tonight.

Governor New Jersey: the courts will decide, absentee ballots could give this to Joe Corzine (ex-Goldman Sachs director), returning the Democrat to a second term.

Governor Virginia: one of the states that does not allow a Governor to stand for re-election. Expect Bob McDonnell to win easily for the Republicans, a gain from Democrats.

California 10th congressional district: expect Democrat hold for John Garamendi (currently the Lieutenant Governor of California).

New York 23rd CD: expect CONSERVATIVE PARTY win for Doug Hoffman (the "Republican" candidate quit over the weekend and endorsed the Democrat, justifying charges she was too close to the Dems). However, this is getting so dirty, I don't expect Democrats to play fair here.

Election nerds will be looking at the changes since last year, when Barack Obama won all four constituencies.

2008 results:
NJ: 57%
VA: 53%
CA 10th CD: 65%
NY 23rd CD: 52%

My forecast is a big swing against the Obama landslide, but to be fair, this is not entirely surprising.

For what it's worth, four years ago I covered the same two gubernatorial elections [and here] in New Jersey and Virginia, when both were won by the Democrats, in what I considered to be an impressive result.

What I got wrong in 2005-2006, was the degree to which the Democrats got themselves organised from a grassroots campaign using blogs such as Daily Kos as well as the idiotic consequences of the McCain-Feingold Act (the main loser being Senator John McCain's presidential ambitions).

Conservatives are likely to be reasonably cheered by these results, but the Republican fiasco in New York and the possible theft of two elections by the Democrats (not the first in recent years at state level) suggest that the Republican party machine and its ruling élite are a shambles.

Rasmussen on US parties' best tactics for outreach

Scott Rasmussen, one of the more reliable pollsters in the U.S.A., has written a thoughtful round up of the issues surrounding the New York State's 23rd congressional district election, which took place on November 3, and which has not yet been called.

He writes:

while Republican voters overwhelmingly consider themselves conservative, only 56% of conservative voters consider themselves to be Republicans. In other words, nearly half of all conservatives nationwide reject the Republican Party label.

This means that Republicans looking to broaden their party’s outreach cannot ignore the need to attract a large number of conservative voters along with some political moderates. Of all the non-Republicans in the nation, 31% consider themselves at least somewhat conservative while 37% say they’re political moderates.

The sweet spot for Republicans are core issues that unify conservatives while dividing more moderate voters. One such issue is health care where conservatives are united in their opposition to the plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, and 37% of moderates are opposed, too.

Looked at from that perspective, nominating a GOP candidate who supports the president’s health care plan is likely to drive away more voters than it attracts. The same logic applies to the stimulus package, card check and other such proposals. That’s just what happened in NY-23. Nationwide, 42% currently support the health care plan working its way through Congress.

It should be noted that Democratic Party dynamics are entirely different.

While a plurality (44%) of Democrats are politically liberal, nearly as many (35%) are moderate. So Democrats must make compromises within their party before reaching out. Also, the pool of available non-Democrats is very heavily on the moderate side.

Just nine percent (9%) of non-Democrats are even somewhat liberal while 29% are politically moderate. These non-Democratic political moderates are absolutely essential to Democratic candidates. That’s why Democrats are eager to suggest that situations such as NY-23 indicate a GOP rejection of moderates in favor of extremists.

Interestingly, while Republican voters say their congressional representatives are out of touch, a plurality (47%) of Democratic voters view their members of Congress as roughly in the same place they are ideologically. Just 27% say the average Democratic member of Congress is more liberal than the average Democrat, while 19% think the average Democrat in Congress is more conservative.