Mayoral candidate Kermit Carolina got the biggest bang for his buck in this week’s Democratic primary election, raising less than $40 per vote. Henry Fernandez took in nearly $100 for each ballot cast for him.
The other two candidates — Justin Elicker and Toni Harp — made use of campaign cash with about equal efficiency. Elicker raised $49.95 per vote. Harp raised about $43.32, counting the $30,000 that the American Federation of State, County, and Federal Employees (AFSCME) put into her victory.
Those numbers, and the maps below, emerge from post-primary parsing of the results of Tuesday’s election.
Harp, a state senator, won the Democratic primary on Tuesday, capturing 50 percent of the vote (or 49.77 percent, to be precise). Elicker, an East Rock alderman, came in second, with about 23 percent of the vote. Fernandez and Carolina were third and fourth, respectively. They promptly dropped out of the race. Elicker is continuing to run against Harp in the Nov. 5 general election as an independent candidate.
Some simple math reveals the approximate amount each candidate raised per vote earned. Note that the chart above is calculated according to how much candidates raised by Sept. 1. The precise amount they spent won’t be known until the next campaign finance disclosure deadline. Click here and here for an analysis of previous campaign finance filings.
Harp raised $287,423 including $26,150 from committees. AFSCME put in another $30,000 to convince New Haveners to vote for her. She earned 7,327 votes.
Fernandez raised $265,361, including $7,750 from committees. He won 2,782 votes.
Elicker raised $170,693, including money from the Democracy Fund, the city’s public campaign financing program. He captured 3,417 votes.
Carolina raised $43,110, including Democracy Fund dollars. He earned 1,195 votes.
Ward-by-ward election results indicate where in the city each candidate found support.
Only Elicker and Harp won the most votes of any candidate in any one ward. Elicker captured the most votes in wards in East Rock, downtown, Westville and the East Shore. The rest of the wards went to Toni Harp.
Since New Haven doesn’t have a winner-take-all electoral college system, you have to drill down a little further to determine where candidates really found support.
The answer, for Harp, is all over town. She earned over 100 votes in almost every ward in the city, with the exception of Ward 10, where Elicker is the alderman, and Ward 1, Yale University. Harp performed especially well in Westville, Wooster Square, Bella Vista/Fair Haven Heights, Dixwell, and Newhallville.
Harp did best in Newhallville’s Ward 20, where she captured a whopping 569 votes. She won 423 votes in Upper Westville, her home turf. No other candidate cracked 400 votes in any ward.
Elicker captured most of his votes in East Rock, Westville, and the East Shore. Vote totals show that he had little penetration in the Hill, Fair Haven, upper Newhallville, and West Rock. Elicker did best in Westville’s Ward 25, where he collected 359 votes.
Fernandez also did well in Westville’s Ward 25, which had the highest voter turnout in the city. He found 335 votes there. He had fairly widespread, if tepid, support elsewhere. He didn’t collect over 200 votes in any other ward.
Carolina struggled throughout the city. He had the most support in West Rock, Newhallville, Dixwell, Beaver Hills, and Westville. He cracked 100 votes only in Ward 20, where he picked up 141 ballots.
Not surprisingly, Ward 20 also figures prominently on the overall voter turnout map. The Newhallville ward had the second highest turnout in the city, thanks to a grassroots vote-pulling operation headed up by Alderwoman Delphine Clyburn and the Democratic ward committee’s co-chairs.
Voter turnout was the lowest at Yale and in the Hill, West Rock, Fair Haven, and Quinnipiac Meadows.
If you look at voter turnout as a percentage of registered Democrats in each ward, Ward 20 drops lower in the rankings, an indication that the ward has a large number of registered voters. Ward 19, which straddles Newhallville and East Rock, rises up to second place, with a 46.85 percent turnout of registered Democrats on Tuesday.
Westville’s “Fighting 25th” remains the champ in both metrics, boasting 1,057 votes cast by 52.35 percent of the ward’s registered Democrats.
The issue of money in elections is a serious one. The amount of money contributors are allowed to give and the places from which that money comes is important (or should be) for voters and citizens. I fail to see the importance (or relevance for that matter) of articles/analysis(?) such as this, however.
What does it REALLY tell us about the influence of money in our elections, while rasing the perception of telling us something worth knowing?
Someone here set me straight if you think I'm missing something. I eagerly await your reply.