Just The Numbers: Behind Sanders-Wiggins 2010: Friday: Moving Day for Wiggins?

Friday, November 5, 2010

Friday: Moving Day for Wiggins?

Friday was a big day for Charlie Wiggins. The day began with a Sanders lead of 18,333 votes, and by the close of business, Wiggins had closed the gap to 11,389.

The biggest gain, unsurprisingly, came from King County, which added a net gain of 11,025 votes for Wiggins. What was surprising was the 648 vote gain that came out of Jefferson County (1,623 +WIGG, 975 +SAND). Jefferson has been the most supportive county -- in percentages, if not in vote totals -- for Wiggins so far: through Thursday, he had accumulated 6,490 of the 10,867 total votes cast (or just under 60%).

But the real story of Friday was the shift in SMOV ["Sanders Margin of Victory" -- see Terminology post]. In total, there were 11 counties that did not report updated vote totals on Friday; of the 28 that did, 23 showed a decline in SMOV. In other words, although Sanders may have still received more votes than Wiggins in many counties, he was doing so by a much smaller margin than he was previously.

Let's look at KPSS [see Terminology post] and see how the numbers changed between the Thursday running totals and the Friday net-new votes:

King County
Nov. 4: SMOV was 42.65% on 371,192 total votes.
Nov. 5: SMOV was 39.24% (-3.41%) on 51,229 net new votes.

Pierce County
Nov. 4: SMOV was 54.73% on 188,274 total votes.
Nov. 5: SMOV was 52.41% (-2.32%) on 10,193 net new votes.

Snohomish County
Nov. 4: SMOV was 52.27% on 144,798 total votes.
Nov. 5: SMOV was 51.17% (-1.10%) on 22,768 net new votes.

Spokane County
Nov. 4: SMOV was 55.88% on 92,523 total votes.
Nov. 5: SMOV was 53.86% (-2.02%) on 7,971 net new votes.

Needless to say, that's a pretty significant drop in support. And we're not talking about a small sample size either. The net new votes represented anywhere from 5-15% of the total votes counted up until that point. So why the sudden drop?

I won't start speculating as to the reason (too much, anyway). It's not uncommon in any election to see the late absentee/mail-in ballots trending towards one party or another. The party that benefits from that late surge seems to change from election to election (although in recent memory, I've seen that trend favor Democrats/liberals more often than Republicans/conservatives). There are other factors that may have affected the late ballots as well: the reported comments by Sanders that made the front page of the Seattle Times website, and the resulting shift in the Times's endorsement may be two such factors. But regardless of the cause, the trend seems to be present.

Looking at the rest of the Big Eight:

Clark County bucked the trend. On Nov. 4, SMOV was 52.28% on 106,077 total votes; on Nov. 5, SMOV rose to 54.13% (+1.85%) on 6,654 net new votes.
Thurston County: On Nov. 4 SMOV was 48.35% on 74,428 total votes; on Nov. 5, SMOV fell to 43.71% (-4.64%) on 977 net new votes. At just over 1.3% of the total votes cast thus far, however, 977 is not a statistically significant number.
Kitsap County: On Nov. 4, SMOV was 47.14% on 61,580 total votes; on Nov. 5, SMOV fell to 44.62% (-2.52%) on 9,291 net new votes.
Whatcom County: On Nov. 4, SMOV was 51.54% on 49, 797 total votes; on Nov. 5, SMOV fell to 47.0% (-4.54%) on 6,209 net new votes.

Further, in looking at the 5 counties that did buck the trend (including Clark county), two of those counties -- Ferry and Wahkiakum -- did so with under 250 net new votes. Further, both counties combined currently account for 3,730 votes in the race.

Certainly the shifting SMOV may be the focus for the weekend and Monday. If Wiggins continues to benefit from a 2-4% shift in support toward him across the board, Sanders may have serious difficulty holding onto this lead through Monday's returns.

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Terminology

The Terminology post is quickly working its way down the page, so here it is, reproduced at the top, for all time. A quick introduction to the terminology I use on this blog:

SMOV: Sanders Margin of Victory (%). Within a defined universe of ballots (say, one particular county's ballots on one particular day), it refers to the percentage of ballots cast for Sanders. [Ed. Note: I'm not expressing an ideological preference: as of this posting, Justice Sanders is leading the race; and using the leading candidate makes the math easier.] Accordingly, a SMOV of 51% means that if 100 ballots were cast, Sanders received 51 and Wiggins received 49.

VCR: Votes Cast in Race (# or %). Not every ballot contains a vote for Sanders or Wiggins. Indeed, on average so far, just under 77% of all ballots cast have contained a vote for either candidate. Some voters may have chosen to write in a candidate -- it's even possible that they may have chosen to write in Sanders or Wiggins, which creates some interesting possibilities (which may be explored in a later blog post). But largely, it's because people chose not to vote in this particular race. They may have been single-issue voters (i.e. the U.S. Senate race), or they may have only cared about the initiatives; I have several friends who only cared about I-1100 and I-1105. Or they may have just stopped at the first page and decided to go do something else. Either way, the VCR% plays a big role in our analysis.

EBOH: Estimated Ballots on Hand (#). This refers to the number of ballots that each county is estimating still remains to be counted. EBOH x VCR% would yield the total number of votes that still remain to be allocated between the two candidates. Note that EBOH is not a static number. Each day in which votes are counted should result in a net decreate in the EBOH total, as votes from that category are counted and allocated to the candidates. However, some ballots may be disqualified for any number of reasons; further, disqualified ballots may be later added back to the EBOH pile if they are later verified by affidavit. Furthermore, ballots may still be arriving, which would increase the EBOH total. Although most of these ballots will be disqualified for being postmarked after election day, some may be from overseas military voters or may be correctly postmarked and will be counted.

SAND or WIGG: I sometimes refer to the candidates as SAND (Sanders) or WIGG (Wiggins) for short. I intend no disrespect.

KPS: A reference to King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, the three largest counties in Washington in terms of registered voters. There are 3,601,152 registered voters (as of Election Day 2010) in Washington; King has 1,069,791 (29.71%), Pierce has 410,081 (11.39%); and Snohomish has 377,739 (10.49%), for a total of 51.58% of all registered voters in Washington.

KPSS: Same as KPS, but add Spokane county; it has 261, 250 (7.25%). KPSS together has 58.84% of the total registered voters in Washington.

KPSSCTKW, or THE BIG EIGHT: Yes, this probably seems a little ridiculous, but stay with me. Same as KPSS, but now add the counties of Clark (219,616, 6.10%), Thurston (149,024, 4.14%), Kitsap (143,796, 3.99%), and Whatcom (116,576, 3.24%). The Big Eight are the counties with over 100,000 registered voters each, and together, they comprise 76.31% of the total registered voters in Washington. [Ed. Note: Yakima is very close to joining this club at 99,568; sorry Yakimanians, I had to draw the line somewhere. Go sign up 432 more voters, and you're in! (next time)]