Ward-by-Ward Post-Mortem

The Next Mayor now has ward-by-ward numbers on the mayor's race, in addition to their ward results map.

I already have a few things I want to say about these numbers, but thought I would post the link first. 'll update as I go, but if anyone else sees anything interesting in these numbers, please post in the comments.

Nutter's strongest support came from the 5th, 8th, 9th, and 15th wards -- that's Center City, Fairmount, and Chestnut Hill. He carried over 2/3 of the vote in each of these wards, with a total of 15,987 votes. Add the 21st and 22nd (Roxborough/Manayunk and Mount Airy), where he took over 50 percent, and you have over 25,000 votes -- a quarter of his total and more than Dwight Evans got city-wide.

The only other candidates to come close to getting as many votes from a single ward were Brady and Knox, both in the 39th (South Philly east of Broad, south of Mifflin); Knox got 3300 votes, outdone by Brady's 3900. In this ward, Nutter got 17% of the vote, Fattah 3%, and Evans 1%.

Nowhere in Philadelphia did Nutter get fewer than 12%. This was in the 19th ward, which is also where Knox did the best, with 65% of the vote. Knox likewise got more than 9% of the vote in every district, doing best in the 19th, the 7th, the 33rd, and the 56th. Knox pulled more than 50 percent in each of these wards, which means he may have done as well with Latino voters and in Kensington as Maria Quiñones Sanchez did.

Knox got very little love from Northwest Philadelphia, pulling only 9% in Chestnut Hill, Mount Airy, and Oak Lane, respectively (9th, 22nd, and 10th). Evans did his best in the 10th, followed by the 50th (27%), the 17th and the 61st. The general rule seems to have been that the farther away from Evans' district, the worse he did. And anywhere Dwight Evans did well, Chaka Fattah also did well -- although the converse isn't true, especially in West Philadelphia.

Fattah did his best in the 4th, 6th, 11th, 24th, 44th, and 51st wards, getting beaten by Michael Nutter in all of them by a handful of votes in some cases. (He might still pull out one of them -- divisions are still out.) Except for the 11th ward, Tioga, those are all in West Philly. In Jannie Blackwell's ward, the 46th, Nutter got 50% of the vote, followed by Fattah at 22% and Knox at 16%.

Bob Brady cleaned up with 40% of the vote in the wards he won (the 26th, 39th, and 31st), and was competitive with Knox almost everywhere that Knox was strong, taking 20-30% of the vote in almost every ward Knox won. He did not do well in the Northwest, where the electorate was probably the most divided between Nutter, Fattah, and Evans, and in the 27th ward, University City, which went over 50% for Nutter, 19% for Fattah.

One surprise -- in the Northeast, which Knox just plain won, although Brady was always in the mix with 20-odd percent, the number two candidate was almost always Nutter, getting 25-30% of the vote in almost every ward. Evans and Fattah, on the other hand, were virtually shut out of these wards, getting just 2-4%.

Let's get everything up online

This is the kind of great work that only a blog backed by a newspaper could put together so quickly. I hope the Next Mayor will also put up the totals for other candidates, like City Council at Large and judicial races.

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Turnout

I'd do better if I could plug the numbers into Excel, but as far as I can tell, the ward with the lowest rate of turnout was the 7th ward in North Philadelphia. There are more than 13000 registered Democrats in the 7th, but only 2096 turned out to vote. This ward went over 50% for Knox.

Someone may find better numbers, but from the looks of it, turnout was the strongest in the 21st, 22nd, and 63rd wards (Roxborough, Mt Airy, and Bustleton in NE Philly), which all clocked just over 50%.

Someone on The Next Mayor made a good point -- Philadelphia tends to purge its voter rolls very lightly. So the chances are quite good that many people who have moved or died are still on the rolls, that there are fewer registered voters in the city than the official number, and that turnout is actually a fair bit better than it appears at first glance.

Its very hard to predict

Its very hard to predict turnout in the 7th and the 19th for that reason. However, what is very odd, is that the ward always goes strong for certain candidates.

The numbers for Nutter are impressive. Strong throughout the City. Northeast, S. Philly, North Philly, all strong.

What was not impressive is how weak Fattah did. He lost to Evans in the 50th. (A bell weather African American ward if there is one.) But more importantly, if you compare Evans' numbers to Fattah, ward by ward, Fattah only did slightly better, i.e., 120 to 80 as an example that showed up a lot.

Isn't the 50th Evan's home

Isn't the 50th Evan's home turf?

Evans Lives in 10th Ward

Dwight Evans lives in the 10th Ward, where he served as wardleader for about a decade, from 1980 until his resignation in 1990.

But the 50th is a strong

But the 50th is a strong Northwest Alliance Ward though, right?

Nutter '07 vs. Street '99

I don't mean this to be a perjorative reflection on John Street. But compared to Street's primary performance in '99, the broader base of Michael Nutter's electoral support yesterday is striking.

The respective percentages of the votes for Nutter (currently 36.68) and Street (35.81) are, of course, very close. Even their respective placings in wards are somewhat similar - Nutter won 37 wards and finished second in 13; Street won 36 wards and finished second in 11.

However it's in the range of percentages by ward where the contrast is stark.

There were 36 wards in which Michael Nutter finished within 10 percentage points of his overall percentage. In 9 wards Nutter's varied greater than 20 points from his overall total. As pointed out above, in no ward did Nutter finish under 10%.

Conversely, in 1999, John Street had only 16 wards in which his percentage was within 10 points of his overall total. There were 35 wards in which his finish varied greater than 20 points from his overall percentage. And there were 16 wards in which Street didn't break 10%.

Most of the problem spots for Street were in what I flippantly refer to as the "Liberty County" portion of the Northeast (Wards 35,41,53-58,62-66). In 2007 Nutter was very competitive in this area where Street was crushed. Nutter (15119 votes, 26.74%) more than tripled Street's performance (4865 votes, 7.91%) in these wards. Nutter even beat Bob Brady in the Northeast.

Its not perjorative towards

Its not perjorative towards Street, b/c he was lucky to get that much support in the Northeast. Folks hated him. (There are some candidates whom you cannot get votes for, John Street in the Northeast is an example; there are others.)

Nutter had very strong support across the City and crushing support in Center City and Chestnut Hill. Very impressive. He beat Brady in his own ward. Also impressive.

I don't know that this spells the end of the Party. (Lou Agre made the excellent point a while back that you really can't speak of the Party as a monolith.) I will say that b/c even though Brady did not win, Brady was not carried by every ward in the City and the Wards that supported Nutter did well for him. However, it does hurt the perception of its influence, b/c there was a thought that the Party could install candidates that are not very popular and they would still win. (Carol Campbell is a good example for some folks.)

The Inquirer has a good

The Inquirer has a good graphic feature called "Where Candidates Got Their Votes."

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