Cabots, Sept. 13, 2014
In the run up to Tuesday’s election there was a lot of speculation suggesting that, while Martha Coakley lagged in the polls, the highly touted Democratic ground game that propelled Deval Patrick to office and made sure Elizabeth Warren defeated Scott Brown, would also deliver the election for Coakley.
Sure enough, the closer-than-most-polls predicted results Tuesday suggested that the Dems came thisclose to winning, in part due to that ground game.
In the end, Baker won by about 40,000 votes.
Coakley said yesterday the she “would not change a single thing” about her campaign. Still, Democrats strategists across the state have to be wondering if there was more they wish they had done to come up with an extra 20,000 or so votes.
That should include party insiders here in Newton.
As Michael Jonas wrote on CommonWealth’s website yesterday 37 percent of Newton voters voted for Baker, not enough to carry “the liberal Boston suburb, but Martha Coakley’s 21-point margin there was 13 points behind her own margin in Newton in 2010 when she lost the special election for US Senate to Scott Brown, and 17 points behind the margin Deval Patrick posted there when he beat Baker later the same year in the governor’s race.”
And the Globe reminded us today…
Baker lost Newton by 21 points. But that marked a substantial improvement over his last showing in the liberal suburb. In 2010, he lost it by 37 points.
Meanwhile, as many election day watchers noted here on Tuesday, the usual throng of loyal sign holders outside of Newton’s polling places and Democratic poll monitors inside, were rare Tuesday (although Dem activists were out in full force for the September primary).
Also, I’m not sure about others, but this is the first election I can recall in years, where there was no reminder to vote left by some eager canvasser at my front door prior to the election. My household never received the usual hand written post cards or calls from an alderman or other local elected officials telling me why my vote for Coakley mattered. I never saw a stand-ups on the street corners holding signs for Coakley (although there may have been some). And I noticed very few Coakley lawn signs anywhere in Newton.
In the past those things seemed to be the purview of Newton’s Democratic City Committee, and folks worked their buns off.
I must note the one exception to this would be state Rep. Ruth Balser, who incessantly was Tweeting and posting on Facebook and about how important electing Coakley was. Same thing with Congressman Kennedy. I’m sure I missed efforts by others. But I don’t think I’m wrong with my overall perception that the usual city party activists failed to pull out all the usual stops for this one.
Anybody out there see it differently?
By the way, the photo that I’ve just added to my post above was taken at Cabots on the Saturday after the Sept. primary and may illustrate part of the problem. As we saw from comments on this thread, at least some of the Newton Dem. worker bees were never told about this event.
Was there a top-down disconnect? Or did the usual boots to the ground Democratic activists feel left out?
I think you are going to get “cry baby loser” flack on this one. I don’t know enough about how much the things you mentioned are tied to votes to comment on the actual question, but that won’t stop me from commenting.
I received one “Don’t forget to vote” letter, but I’m blanking on who sent it and 2 people came by with handouts on state questions. I like getting the handouts even if it’s just to read their propaganda. I didn’t see the usual number of signs either in yards or at street corners.
The Don’t Forget To Vote reminders, postcards, flyers, etc. are important close to Election Day (auto corrected, didn’t know that was capitalized) for the obvious reason. Even marked everywhere these dates can sneak up on you.
But I do know that the settlement in the works between the AG and Partners is creating dissent among members of both parties. I don’t know how much influence some of her controversial anti trust settlements have on voters though.
The photo is priceless!! Meanwhile Charlie Baker was out meeting the voters.
Coakley is despised among marijuana reform advocates. She deliberately derailed implementation of the medical marijuana ballot initiative. It cost her a lot of support among progressive Democrats, in a race where the Republican candidate seemed fairly moderate, and the third-party candidate [Falchuk] supported full legalization. Did her position on marijuana cost her the twenty thousand votes that could have swung the election? I totally believe it did.
There did seem to be fewer signs, mailings, and handouts for this election – far fewer than in the primary (but that makes sense – fewer candidates). That said, handouts and mailings go straight to recycling in our house. I view signs as visual blight, and sign holders I regard in the same way I do people who paint their faces for sporting events (no offense intended to any particular individual who is into that sort of thing). So I viewed all of these as positives. And, I find it hard to believe that any but a tiny number of people need to be reminded that it’s election day.
What could Coakley have done differently? Not much – it was a year where the Republican viewpoint (or the anti-Democrat viewpoint) was more popular across the country. Coakley out-polled keeping the gas tax and extending the bottle bill, both of which can be viewed as Dem/progressive defeats. My only suggestion would have been to have gone after Polito harder. I viewed Coakley as someone who unlikely to accomplish much if she had gained the governorship, and was prepared to vote for the lost-cause independent Falchuk. A few days before the election, I learned about Polito and did not want her a “heartbeat away” from the governorship, and I switched my vote to Coakley (this coincided with my learning that unlike the primary there was no separate vote for Lt Governor – this was a surprise to me because it’s my first governorship election since moving to MA).
In case anyone is wondering, like I did, if Falchuk shrank Coakley’s gap in Newton, the answer appears to be no. Falchuk’s 4% in Newton is the same as what the two independents received in Newton in 2010. To share my quick research, the results for Newton that I found are 2014: Baker 12,018, 37%; Coakley 18,950, 59%; Falchuk 1376, 4% (but where are the other independents?); and 2010: Baker 10,396, 29%; Patrick 23,475, 67%, and independents combined 1419, 4%. Almost 3000 fewer total voters this year in Newton (32,344 vs. 35,290) but Baker got 1600 more votes anyway.
@BruceB: I’ve always been skeptical about all those post cards, lawn signs, stand-outs, etc. But the folks who specialize in the ground game swear by them.
I spent the better part of the last 6 weeks with my usual activist pals, phone banking, canvassing, etc. In addition, I ran 5 phone banks with teacher pals and attended 2 others as well with another group of teacher activists.
I did note election fatigue has led to a drop off in the numbers of volunteers, which is to be expected after a two year period during which Newton has had a special election for Sen. Markey, an override campaign that many people went all out for, and a highly visible mayoral/aldermanic/ SC election, a major signature collection for Question #4, and most importantly of course, the 2012 presidential election. Let’s hope we get at least a year’s rest from electoral politics!
As for the photo-it was taken just 5 days after the Primary when many activists were taking the weekend off in preparation for the general. There are a number of other photos you can find with many volunteers, clipboard in hand, ready to canvass on Ruth’s Face Book page (I think that’s where you can find them. If not, I can send along another more accurate photo of the volunteer effort).
Visibilities on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon take people away from voter-to-voter contact and that’s the focus of any election, and on election day the phone banks were busy right up until the polls closed from two locations in Newton. Lawn signs have always been a rarity in state and national elections in Newton, but my bet is that we’ll still love our lawn signs for the next local election. I’m with BruceB – all mailers go straight from the mail slot to the recycle bin without so much as a glance. I’m not a television watcher, so I never saw one TV ad during the whole election cycle and that was truly a blessing from what I’ve heard.
The NDCC is one of a number of committees (the others being the state party and the candidates themselves) tasked with running the campaign in Newton. All involved did everything possible to energize volunteers and we ran a great campaign in Newton. There are a ton of photos at http://www.facebook.com/newtondems taken by our Secretary Robert Fitzpatrick – @Jim Cote, check them out! Newton knocked on thousands of doors (that was a strategy decision, more doors, less signs and poll watchers) and made even more calls to voters across the whole state.
Still, this was a tough election cycle. Republicans had the wind at their backs. Martha Coakley did everything she could and kept it very close here in MA. She was also outspent by the GOP 10 to 1 – thank you Citizens United.
Losing Gov is tough for us for sure, but Dems won all the rest of the executive office seats in the state, and only lost 6 legislative seats to the GOP.
By the way, I had missed that September post about the Cabot’s stop that you reference Greg. Sometimes those things come together at the very last minute we’re just not able to get the word out to everyone in time. We do everything humanely possible to keep our faithful activists in the loop!
I happened to attend the Democratic Newton caucus this year to support Steve Grossman. I noticed that Martha Coakley was a no-show at that caucus and I asked the one Coakley supporter I ran into why that was. I was told that Newton is very strong for Grossman since it’s his home town and that Coakley had decided not to focus on Newton. No one even spoke for her at the Ward 6 caucus I was in. It struck me as shortsighted to not even show up and reminded me of her Senate race.
It leaves me wondering if writing off Newton during the caucuses affected her ability to get more volunteers here. I wasn’t a part of her campaign at all, so maybe someone else can comment on the effect of skipping our caucuses.
How could I forget the hard fought Primary election in September that began at the well-attended February caucuses at which being selected to be a delegate to the Democratic State Convention was actually competitive, and continued throughout the summer until September 9th?
BTW, the event in the picture was well publicized. Trust me, the boots on the ground folks didn’t feel left out of any political event.
Uh, then how do you explain this comment?
If anything, I would say that Martha Coakley exceeded expectations, falling short by less than 2% in a close race, in no small part due to the GOTV effort by Dems across the state. All but one poll in the last week before the election had Charlie Baker up anywhere from 3% to 7%, and by an average of 3.7%.
It surely did not help that none of the other statewide races for US Senate, Treasurer, Attorney General, Auditor and Secretary of the Commonwealth were particularly contentious, which could have bolstered the Dems GOTV effort. Dems turned out for Bill Keating and Seth Moulton (he and Richard Tisei seem to have had a real bromance going on), but it did not help her much in the generally more conservative bastions of the 6th and 9th congressional districts.
Moreover, in 2014, MA voters leaned more purple than usual, with the GOP picking up a number of seats in both houses of the state legislature. The ballot measures did not particularly help her, either. A slim majority of usually progressive MA residents voted to repeal the indexed gas tax (watch out for rough roads and broken bridges ahead, folks), and a solid majority voted against expanding the bottle bill (litterbugs!), and against repealing the law permitting casinos (which Coakley, as AG, tried to keep off the ballot, in a move that certainly did not endear her to a lot of the liberal base within her own party).
The only crumbs left on the table for bleeding heart liberals (like me) was the vote to guarantee 40 hours of sick leave for employees, and the fact that the GOP failed to crack the Democratic hegemony in the Congressional delegation, giving blue Mass one of the longest if not the longest consecutive string of Dem sweeps in the country.
On the whole, I think Coakley did well just to have made it a very close race instead of a total blowout for Charlie Baker. So don’t feel too bad for her. But if you want to feel bad for someone, pity poor Scott Brown. As one female Dem pundit remarked on election night, he will go down in history as the only man ever to lose a US Senate race to two different women in two different states (rumor has it Scotty is buying a house in Maine and going for the trifecta).
Can the analysts on V14 explain why Coakely faded late in the campaign? The polls had Coakely favored, from a 10 point high in July and then a slow slide until October when it became a toss-up and then the loss.
Why the late fade?
A good graphic HERE
The Coakley campaign did not call the boots on the ground people, but the Newton Dems began actively recruiting people to this event and to other volunteer opportunities right after the Primary .
Greg – you need to get a life. 😉
I think the door-to-door campaign strategy only works when there is a clear, solid, compelling message to deliver that will resonate with voters. While Dems were urged to canvass and make phone calls, the problem, as I see it, was that the message delivered was not compelling enough to gain the votes. Newton Dems certainly got the vote out, but not necessarily for their gubernatorial candidate.
While some may think visibilities are not important, those of us who participated in it can affirmatively state that we received positive feedback both at the hazardous intersections or MassPike bridges and at the polls on election day.
Congratulations to Deb Goldberg and Maura Healey!
I hate to say it, but the corner office is the one that matters. It’s the person who will set the budget priorities, affect chapter 70 funding, etc. How did either the AG or Treasurer help us out during the Romney years? We were just beginning to recover from those days and now right back in it. Time to face reality – it’s the governor who matters.
While Martha Coakley wasn’t my choice in the Primary, I certainly had no trouble making a case for her in the general.
Terry asks
c.f. THERE …another race which felt like personality was more important than politics.
I supported Coakley, but was I really the only one who saw this one coming? Why did the party give her another chance after 2010?
Coakley failed Coakley. Look at how the state voted for everyone else… and then theres Baker. I am no fan of Charlie Baker but I voted for him to spite Coakley, as did many others. Also, everyone saw this from a mile away.
My personal issues with her were actions she took as AG. She also just seems less competent to run a state than Baker… look no further than her crybaby childish refusal to concede… you want someone like that in charge?
As far as Scott Brown is concerned… I hope he does run in Maine and loses… what a scumbag.
As a Democratic activist, I was unsure up to the minute I voted. I personally don’t care for Coakley, but was in the end voted for her the same way many favored Obama over McCain in 2008 – Karyn Polito is the MA equivalent to Sarah Palin.
Sadly, most people vote on what they perceive as the persona of the candidate. Despite Coakley’s qualifications, she comes off as a snob. Statements like “my record stands for itself” appears to make the assumption that voters know and remember her record. Most people have a hard enough time remembering to pick up the toilet paper on the way home from a full day at work on the way to pick up their kids from soccer practice and is there enough food I the house to make dinner much less what Coakley’s record is.
It’s interesting that people so ingrained in party politics blame the likability of the candidate over the work of the members of the party. After all, how many times was Barney Frank re-elected? Does anyone remember Barney as likable? The Coakley campaign was tremendously outspent by Baker. The conflicts presented in a primary race, hurt the Democratic party, in both commitment and cash. Let’s not leave out Obama’s approval ratings, and the growing dissatisfaction with his performance as POTUS. The majority of voters in Newton (and MA) are un-enrolled in a political party.
Regardless of these reasons, the Newton Democratic Committee did a great job in turning out the number of Newton voters for Coakley. I look forward to a new administration and seeing what Baker can accomplish with as heavily weighted Democratic Beacon Hill and the remainder of the Constitutional state offices held by Democrats.