Early voting in Newton by the numbers from City Clerk David Olson…
- Newton has 61,634 registered voters.
- 27,845 applications for the September Primaries were received and ballots mailed out.
- As of 5:00 pm, 20,154 voters who were mailed ballots have returned them.
- Mailed ballots can be dropped off at the drop boxes at Newton City Hall until the close of polls (8:00 pm) tomorrow night.
- The last State Primaries in 2018 had 15,942 Newton voters vote.
And of course you can still vote the old fashioned way tomorrow (Tuesday) from 7 am to 8 p.m.
There was a Jewish Insider poll this weekend which shows it to be a very close 2-person race:
Auchincloss 23%
Mermell 22%
Grossman 15%
Leckey 11%
Jake Auchincloss is touting the results, which doesn’t seem like a very wise strategy on his part, since the poll makes clear that the only candidate with any chance of beating Auchincloss is Jesse Mermell, and that a vote for Grossman, Leckey, Khazei, or anyone else is essentially a wasted vote for Auchincloss.
https://jewishinsider.com/2020/08/auchincloss-and-mermell-are-neck-and-neck-in-new-massachusetts-4th-poll/
Thanks, Greg. Many friends and I had been wondering how many early ballots there would be. This portends a really nice turnout overall.
We owe huge gratitude to David Olson and the Clerk’s Office staff. He and the whole Clerk’s office have handled this overwhelming responsibility with grace, expertise and calm. These folks are the winners in my book.
So true, Susan!
I looked at that Jewish Insider poll and 46% independent (helps Jake) and skews very young (helps Mermell). Still anyone’s game, and Becky has been at or on top of all other polls. It’s much closer than you think it is. I believe it will be a toss up between those 3 (I’m supporting Becky). She’s authentic and real and has good values.
Paul Sweeney, Auchincloss would obviously prefer that it be a tossup between those three because that would guarantee him the win. Also, I don’t think the poll skewed young, if anything didn’t it skew a little old?
Poll:
age 18-39: 26%
age 40-49: 13%
age:50-64: 26%
age >65: 23%
didn’t say : 12%
MA population:
age 20-39: 27%
age 40-49: 12%
age 50-59: 14%
age 60-69: 12%
age >70: 11%
https://censusreporter.org/profiles/04000US25-massachusetts/
Michael, older folks vote at a much higher percentage Census has very little to do with it.
@Michael – as @fig wrote, voters tend to skew much older.
Also, why would Jake want all 3 to be competitive? Remember if each gets to 20% there’s still 40% to split between Khazei (8-10), Linos (4-7), Sigel (1). The wild card is Leckey – if she surges, that hurts Jesse tremendously. With more than $1mm of her own funds invested, Leckey made the investments to compete. We shall see in 24 hrs.
This is excellent news. Massachusetts should make mail-in voting available on a permanent basis.
FNV and Paul, I’ve conveniently got a half-dozen other fun Excel spreadsheets open so when I quickly do the math, I don’t see any youthful bias in the poll – if you apply voter participation rates to the census age groups (recalculated as a % of the 18+ voting-age population), you get the following real-world breakdown of voters according to age group:
age 18-39: 33%
age 40-49: 15%
age 50-59: 19%
age 60-69: 19%
age >70: 17%
So the 18-39 demographic only accounted for 30% of the poll respondents (if you reassign voters who “didn’t say”) vs. 33% of likely real-world turnout. I don’t think the poll skewed very young in favor of Mermell. I expect that it will turn out to be a quite reliable poll, but as you say, we shall see in 24 hours.
Nobody with any sense is going to vote for Leckey at this point. I say that as her core demographic. And Grosman surely has a devoted following but I would be shocked if she were to get any more than 15%.
Thanks Michael. This is great content. I appreciate it.
My gut, based on all the polls, is that it’s going to be very, very close between Grossman, Auchincloss, Mermell tomorrow. All depends on voter turnout in various parts of the district. I wouldn’t be surprised if all are around 20%.
Excited to see what happens – as folks say, there’s no poll more important than the one on Election Day!
It’s Sept. 1* and I never received the mail-in ballots my husband and I requested. I’m not blaming anyone: We probably didn’t send in the application until about 2 weeks ago, which tells me the city should really stress the importance of getting in applications as soon as possible.
Election (and Primary) Day is one of my favorite days of the year. I’m going to miss going to Countryside to vote today.
*I decided Thursday that voting early was the best way to ensure my vote was counted.
I am so pleased that one of my 16 year-old soccer players signed up to be a poll worker for the city. What a great experience!