Whitey’s thoughts on this year’s BOS competition.
Elections are always difficult to predict. Here are some of the facts that helped me decide to run:
- The last time that Tim Soverino ran, Whitey beat him by 638 votes (1547 to 909).
- Of the 4 races that Soverino competed in, his highest total was 1402 votes and his average was 1212. Whitey’ lowest race was 1486 votes.
- In the past 14 years, Whitey received the 3rd highest number of votes behind Brian Chadwick and Matt Fee.
- Kopko received 1183 votes in a single seat race. Of all the 24 winners in the past 14 years Kopko was the 21st from the highest winner (or the 4th lowest).
Using these numbers:
- Soverino would beat Kopko in a two person race;
- Whitey would beat Soverino in a two person race;
- Whitey would beat Kopko in a two person race.
This year we have a 4 person race with T.J. Grant participating. T.J. is a recent graduate of NHS. He works at the Boys and Girls Club and was a mediator at the NHS. T.J. is a nice young man and I have enjoyed meeting and talking to him. It is very important to encourage younger people to participate in Town politics.
It is difficult to extrapolate these data to a 4 way race.
Please vote for Whitey on April 14th.
Whitey is dedicated to solving problems, reducing the cost of living for year-round residents, and preserving our native scallop fishery and other natural resources.
Hi, Whitey:
ReplyDeleteI took a look at your numbers and I think you are missing some very vital data when figuring out who will win this race. Some points to consider:
1. When you ran the last time around, the best known name in the race and the person that long-standing islanders voted for was Brian Chadwick. Chadwick actually drew islander votes away from Tim Soverino, which is why Tim lost. In the upcoming race, the only long-standing islander running is Soverino and I believe he will get many of those local votes.
2. You ran in a 2-seat year and this is a 1-seat year. The dynamics are very different. Much of the polling I did at the time indicated that you were not largely the electorate's first vote but that you did get a lot of second votes. There are no second votes in this race.
3. Your math does not take into consideration the great job that Michael Kopko has been doing on the Board. I think the voters will see that and will adjust the math accordingly. I've talked to a number of people who did not vote for Michael last time but plan to this time.
4. My pre-campaign survey, which your readers can take here: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey-intro.zgi?p=WEB228UD6D2XYU shows that Kopko and Soverino both have a sizable lead over you. You can see the results on my blog here: http://grantsanders.blogspot.com/2009/02/2009-selectmans-campaign-survey.html There are over 200 respondents at this writing.
It should be interesting.