Step up, step up. Place you bets. Put your money where your mouth is.
It’s time to take a shot at being crowned the Village 14 Prognosticator-In-Chief.
What will be the percentage Yes/No vote on Tuesday’s Northland referendum? Closest guess gets the glory and a pair of tickets to The Newton Nomadic Theater.
Based on zero information, I’ll open the bidding with a Yes/No 58/42.
I agree that the referendum will likely fail with the numbers jerry suggested.
The math is not in its favor as Newton mostly leans liberal and housing is one of the major agendas PLUS most importantly, any negative issues will only affect a minority of Newton who live in the area.
Really cant see the No’s winning. The rezoning will be more interesting as it affects the entire of Newton.
@bugek – place your bet. 58/42 already taken
65(yes)/35(no)
I don’t believe the referendum has put together a strong enough message to resonate with the ‘average’ resident (generally lean left).
Yes 54
No 46
Comfortable but not overwhelming. High turnout.
Yes: 60
No: 40
Yes 49 / No 51
Yes 40 : No 60
Assume turnout of 20,000 and that 80% of the people who cared enough to sign the petition show up to vote (and they vote no). If the remaining vote splits 50:50, no wins 60/40.
Obviously some big assumptions, but nearly 5,000 voters (about 25% of the turnout of the 2016 presidential primary) have already indicated which way they lean by signing the petition.
OTOH…I signed the petition and am voting yes…so maybe the correlation isn’t really that strong.
I wish there was a way to determine the percentage of voters that signed the referendum papers who knew what they were signing, but that’s water under Echo Bridge.
Yes 56/No 44
Tiebreaker: over/under on turnout over 35%? Under.
Hi @Max, Off-hand I don’t recall if I signed the RSN petition. But I do generally sign petitions and candidate papers even if I’m mixed on the initiative or candidate. If the RSN petition goes down in flames, it still provided a final opportunity for citizen review and input. Discussions that some felt needed to be had, were had.
Jerry took 58/42 in favor of Northland right out of the gate, so I’ll go with 59/41 – Northland proceeds.
The yes vote on marijuana got 54.5% of the vote, I’m going to guess it’s a similar outcome.
No will win by 3-5 percent. Pot is not the right analog. More likely the Charter Reform is what we should be considering. Newton is marginally dominated by conservatives who fear change and take an H_infinity approach to the type of uncertainty generated by the Northland project.
People such as these are (far) more motivated to get out and vote against something than the rest of us who are more passively in favor of the project are motivated to get out and vote in favor.
My wager is that No vote is going to win 55 -50.
I am basing this on the feedback from one of the paid Yes canvasser who has spent the last five weeks doing this work. (N = 1) They are getting a pretty hostile reception out there on the streets of Newton.
It will take a significant turnout to get to 105%.
ha ha!
@Lisa I like your pick. I don’t know where those extra 5% of your voters are coming from- sounds fishy but intriguing. My prediction, by comparison, is just boring – 58% YES- 42% NO. I think the over/under on turnout @ 35% will be UNDER.
I plan to enthusiastically vote YES.
I predict that Yes will carry 57%/43% citywide, but that No will carry in at least three nearby precincts (say, 5/1 or 6/2). On the basis of results in those precincts, RSN will claim victory, saying the affected people have spoken, and will file in court to stop the project.
If all the rich south siders are still in Florida and many north siders prefer to vote NO and go to the polls, who knows?
It does seem strange that the YES group are spending disproportionately more than the NO group if the YES vote is a done deal. Too bad Northland is such an inappropriate development for the site. It could have been so much better and a real asset to the community. I will vote NO.
In my fever dreams Newton comes through with a resounding 75% yes as a way to definitively put this whole question to rest. But I’m not foolish enough to believe that, nor to bet on it.
Yes 53%
No 47%
Turnout: 38%
I’m more interested in seeing the precinct data and I predict huge turnouts in precincts 4-2, 5-1 and 8-3 that will likely drive up the No numbers. 3-1 will likely go No too. 3-2 and 3-4 will go Yes. 3-3 is a mix. Ward 1 will fall firmly on the Yes side.
17/24 of the voters will say yes, just like their elected representatives.
What Colleen said. People are waking up. They see the Bloomberg-esque media blitz from the Yes side. (Methinks they doth protesteth too much). Interesting, also, how most of the signs appear along the demographic lines one would expect 😉
52% yes, 48% no, turnout 40%.
Very hard to predict, since folks need to actually ask for the ballot. Very interested in the precinct data as well.
56.3% Yes. 43.7% No.
Interesting how quickly 5000 signatures were acquired….I think it was actually more.
If that were truly a random sample I think no would win handily.
I would, based on the petition counts, say no will win. 5000 signatures is like a canary in a coal mine. But I wouldn’t put money on it.
But it’s interesting how close the yes fans think it will be.
Shows how divided the city really is on these issues.
I rarely go down Needham street. Too much traffic, and nothing there I can’t get elsewhere or online. The traffic is already bad- don’t see how you can make that better by adding even a small development; you’ve got the bridge over the Charles river right there that’s the bottleneck, and people going to/from 128…
53% yes/47% no.
Maybe as high as 55% yes, but I doubt more than that.
Well the results are in. 58-42 (Y/N) which means that two people share the fortune-telling glory despite the fact the one of the entries stomped on my own prognostication.
Henceforth, Peter Bloy and I will share the honorific of Village14 Prognosticator-In-Chief for correctly guessing the 58-42 spread. Mr Bloy will receive the theater ticket prize since those folks always let me into their theater.