CD5 Precinct-By-Precinct: preliminary number crunching

The Maricopa County Recorder's Office has finally posted the precinct-by-precinct results for the November election. I've put them into an Excel spreadsheet to play with them, and have a few results now:

Out of 250 precincts in CD5:

Harry Mitchell and JD Hayworth tied in 2 - Mesa 51 (274 votes each) and Pima (450 each).

They were less than 10 votes apart in 15 other precincts.

JD Hayworth won in 75 precincts; Harry Mitchell won 171. There were two precincts that had no votes recorded, Longmore (6 registered voters) and Canyon (0 registered voters).

171 Mitchell + 75 Hayworth + 2 ties + 2 no votes = 250 precincts accounted for.

Disclaimer: Now for the "preliminary" part.

One of the analyses that I performed was to compare the results of the voting with the registrations, which was enlightening, until I realized that I had used incomplete registration numbers for each precinct. I used only the "active" registrations for each precinct; unfortunately for the calculations, "inactive" registrations are still valid. The difference won't make a large difference in the analysis, but could affect it slightly. I'll update it next week, but even when using only the "active" numbers, the results are eye-opening.

As part of the analysis, I used as a baseline the registrations with declared affiliations and then compared that to the actual breakdown of the results.

For example, if a given precinct had 150 registered voters, 100 with affiliations, 60 Rep, 35 Dem, and 5 Libertarian, that would give a baseline of 60% Rep, 35% Dem, and 5% Lib. With a vote breakdown of 53% Hayworth, 45% Mitchell, and 2% Severin, that would give Mitchell a +10 rating compared to affiliations.

In essence, for the purposes of this analysis, the baseline assumes that independents vote the same way and in the same proportions as affiliated voters in that precinct. The reality, of course, is a little different, but it's still a valid yardstick, imo. It shows the precincts where a candidate draws greater support than his opponent from independents (or from across party lines, but I can't measure that with these numbers). This is useful info for minority party candidates looking for areas in "enemy territory" where a campaign appearance might be fruitful, or for a majority party candidate looking for weak areas to shore up.

Out of 250 precincts, Mitchell did worse than the baseline in

10.

What does this mean?

While he didn't win each precinct, he gained on Hayworth in 240 precincts! Which jibes with something I said in August - Mitchell didn't need to win in Scottsdale to beat Hayworth, he just had to make Hayworth's margin of victory in Scottsdale smaller than his (Mitchell's) margin of victory in Tempe.

He did so, and he did win.

That speaks to both a broad base of support and a tremendous Get Out The Vote effort by the Mitchell campaign and by the AZ Dems.

More analysis next week!

Have a great holiday!