In 2012, 45.9% of registered Newton voters were Democrat, 8.0% were Republican, and 53.7% were Unenrolled. Let’s compare this to Newton’s elected officials—Mayor, School Committee members, City Councilors, and Charter Commissioners—who are 97.6% Democrat, 2.3% Republican, and 0% Unenrolled. All elected city officials are Democrats with the exception of Republican Councilor James Cote. Why is there such overwhelming disconnect between the affiliations of voters and elected officials?
To Newton Democratic Committee Chair Shawn Fitzgibbons’ chagrin (or glee?), our newest Councilor, Jacob Auchincloss, switched after the election from being Unenrolled to Democrat.
Remember the biggest gap occurs for the Unenrolled. An answer asserting that the national Republican Party is out of touch with local values won’t hold water.
I disagree with the basic premise here.
Unrolled is not a political party. I live with someone who almost always votes Democratic but likes the option of being able to vote in either party’s political primary, which this year might mean a chance to vote against Donald Trump. Others are unenrolled for professional reasons. I’m sure if you did a deep survey of unerolled voters, you’d find many other reasons why voters are choose to basically say “I decline to commit.”
To say, “How comes there’s no unenrolled representation at City Hall?” you’d first have to assign a common ideology that bonds unenrolled voters. But that doesn’t exist.
Jeffrey – Statistics for the state Primaries may provide some useful information on this topic. Massachusetts has had six Primary elections in the last 13 years (2002, 2004, 2008, 2110, 2012, and 2014) and in each one, 85-90% of Newton voters pulled a Democratic ballot.
As a card-carrying member of the Newton non-partisan party, our roots are based in observing something needing to be done, effectuating the positive action to deliver positive result with as little fanfare as possible. If at all possible, attempting to circumvent municipal government, allows us to accomplish more without paperwork, allowing the municipality mouthpieces to take the credit which they crave as the center of community attention. By their deflection of public attention, our ability to stay out of the radar is enhanced. This new year of municipality legislative name branding will hopefully enlighten many of the old minded aldermen, bringing with it a renewed consciousness of lip-flapping aldermen, perceived in public, saying nothing new, rehashing the same mindedness over and over, boring the viewer to new heights of desperation in excessive word count, to the point where we doers grab the mute button..
I’ve never enrolled with a party and yet have always voted Democratic. More precisely, I could never bring myself to vote for a Republican. If I am going to have to support with my vote some subset of policies I do not agree with, I would prefer to err with the D’s than the R’s. Something about looking myself in the mirror each morning.
So, while my proclivities are certainly on one side of the isle, I have no interest in formally joining that group. Fundamentally, the parties do nothing for me. They only seem to vastly exaggerate minor differences rather than serving as organizations that can improve our municipality, commonwealth or nation. Also, I do not need the extra spam.
Unenrolled voters generally seek to make more of an objective impact. It is not because they can not commit. It is because they CHOOSE not to commit for a variety of reasons.
In state primaries, there are usually multiple viable candidates from whom to choose on the Democrat ballot. The more independent minded unenrolled will many times choose a primary ballot that will have the greater impact. In Newton, that’s the Democrat ballot.
Greg has it right- that is precisely why I am unenrolled, to have the option to choose which primary to vote in- as someone who votes largely for Democratic Party candidates, that meant having the opportunity to have a choice in the ’96 and ’12 presidential primaries, for example, rather than rubber-stamping an incumbent. That’s it.
It would be interesting to see, among the unenrolled, what party (D/R/Green/Other) would have more represented idf required to declare a party. That would feed this premise, rather than assuming “unenrolled” means some sort of ideology or even disaffection.
@Jeffrey, perhaps Area Councillors don’t count for your study but their make-up may bring this more into balance on the Republican vs Democratic side. I know some of us were elected as Unenrolled individuals and it is generally a good idea that the City Charter calls for non-partisan municipal elections.
As to Shawn’s glee(?), he made a moderate sell to those of us not registered as Democrats to join for the party’s backing in the recent election. Perhaps I should have thrown integrity to the wind and joined in the Democrats at the eleventh hour since you analysis shows Unenrolleds did not fare so well :-)
@Greg and Jane. I don’t think I have a basic premise. As opinionated as I am, I really don’t have a firm grasp on why the percentages are so different. Greg and Doug say that a bunch of the Unenrolleds are closet Democrats, who like more freedom to pick. This begs the question, why don’t elected officials seek the same freedom? BTW, Charlie Baker won 40% of the votes in Newton, so I don’t think all the Unenrolleds are closet Democrats.
@Jane. I don’t think voting in primaries is going to tell us much. People don’t vote unless they have people to vote for. Maybe this should be the Charter Commission’s slogan. My guess is that the Republican primaries in MA are not very exciting, so they don’t get much turnout.
The big question, for me, is why do so many voters take the option to be Unenrolled, but not elected officials? I am not sure, but let me throw out two, related, possibilities. First, the Newton Democrat party does a great helping local Democrat’s get elected, or put another way, the Newton Democrat party does a great job in campaigning against non-Democrats. The Republican story is very different, since the local Republican chapter supports some Democrats for office. In this environment, why would anyone (like Groot) run as a non-Democrat? Second, given this, perhaps elected officials are just like everyone else, and although they are nominally Democrats, they are really 62% Republicans and Unenrolleds.
One big difference is that the two major parties in Newton as elsewhere no longer control most of the information about candidates and issues. The internet is now doing a lot of what party organizations, labor unions and ethnic/community groups used to do. I remember the 1956 Stevenson campaign when a very small Democratic headquarters office in West Newton was the only reliable source that voters could go to for literature about Stevenson, campaign events and statewide candidates. And a lot of people did drop by to pick up literature, bumper stickers and campaign pins.
BTW. I miss the days when the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), Prohibitionists and other oddball parties regularly appeared on the Massachusetts state ballot. the new third parties just aren’t as interesting or as funky.
I left the democratic party because I felt that the party left me. I used to consider myself a moderate/blue collar democrat who tried to get the issue right as opposed to vote for someone/something because a party tells me to. The people I looked up to were people like Tip Oneil and JFK, who is out there for me to look up to now?
I left because of the name calling between the parties. I was a moderate so I get called a “DINO” (democrat in name only) because I don’t go along with the party? Whatever happened to that wonderful tent we were all in? A bunch of hypocrites.
We allow everyone in our party, except if you disagree. hahah…joke.
Yes, unenrolled is a party.
If unenrolled is not a party, you have the majority of voters opposed to a 2 party system for one reason or another.
It’s an interesting question without a easily determined answer. Without asking each elected official why they chose to run on a D/R party affiliation, we are left with supposition. My guess is because democrats win more often in Newton, making the choice, at least recently, easier than going another route.
As for unenrolled voters, several reasons to choose that option are already posted. One that is touched on above is the growing disillusion with the democratic party as it has become more moderate, evidenced by Bernie Sanders’ popularity. As local unenrolled voters, this would mean voting for the most progressive candidate – generally a democrat.
Another reason could have a lot to do with the high percentage of highly educated, engaged voters in Newton. This demographic generally considers itself to be more independent thinking and, at least in Newton, more liberal.
For local elections what matters is not the overall party identification but rather the party identification of those that vote in municipal elections — which we know is a small fraction of the total electorate (20% or less). I haven’t looked it up but it would be interesting to see if THOSE uber-voters skew more Democratic than the City’s voters as a whole.
To quote a legend for the Republican perspective:
“All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us…they can’t get away this time”
– Lewis B. Chesty Puller, USMC
Page 5 of the League of Women Voters 2010 Charter Study (http://lwvnewton.org/charter/CharterStudyReport.pdf) offers a reason to NOT reduce the number of Councilors, “More representatives means more diversity, and ensures a greater number of viewpoints are represented.”
One of the reasons why I looked at political affiliations of elected officials was because during public comment portion before a Charter Commission meeting, a few people repeated this viewpoint. At the time, I thought to myself “What kind of diversity are they talking about?” Certainly, the Board is much less racially diverse than voters. Age-wise they are less diverse. Occupationally they are much less diverse than voters–a ton of lawyers, not a lot of medical doctors, professors, engineers, and business owners. This got me thinking about “viewpoint” diversity,which might be proxied by national party affiliation.
@Jeffrey: In Newton, where there are few ideological issues that come before the City Council, I believe economic, age and geographic diversity are more impactful on the legislative process.