It Comes Down To The Cities

​“Jason The Greek” (pictured), one of Connecticut’s most incisive in-the-trenches numbers-crunchers on behalf of Democratic campaign, handicaps Tuesday’s nail-biter.

Connecticut’s gubernatorial race is currently projected by the experts at Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com as the closest Senate or governor’s race in the country. By the absolutely slightest of margins they seem to think Dan Malloy will win, but they report the race as an absolute flatfooted tie: 50 percent to 50 percent. This prediction mirrors the results from four years ago, when Malloy defeated Tom Foley by a mere 6,400 votes. It seems fairly obvious that we are headed to another election that will be decided within 10,000 votes or so. Heading to Election Day, the campaigns are depending on different strategies for success. Each campaign needs to execute on the following three points to be successful. The campaign that gets closest to its three goals will prevail.

What Foley Needs To Win

• Increase margins by 2 percent across the vast majority of towns.

The Foley campaign needs to just do a little bit better almost everywhere because, unlike the Malloy Campaign, Foley’s forces lack a base of significant size. Foley did remarkably well in winning towns in 2010, but too often the places he won netted him only a small number of votes. In contrast, Malloy earned a substantial 84,938 margin from his 16 best towns.

• Excel in the GOP base towns.

Tom Foley did a relatively good job getting margin out of the 52 towns that Mitt Romney ended up winning in 2012. He won them by a combined 59,840 votes. To be successful, Foley will need to move that up to around 65,000 to counteract the effect of Malloy’s efforts in the cities

• Not lose a single town he won in 2010.

Foley cannot afford to lose ground pretty much anywhere. While some of his town victories were exceptionally small, he needs to hold them all. Towns moving from Foley to Malloy, even small flips, will be nearly fatal.

What Malloy Needs to Win

• Gain about 10,000 votes of margin in the Democratic base cities and towns.

The Malloy campaign has made its focus the Democratic base cities and towns and with good reason. There is slight evidence he has gotten any more popular over the last 4 years, but there are clearly more votes hiding in the cities. In 2010, Malloy won the towns that he got 60 percent or more of the vote in by a combined 84,938. This compares to a 181,448 margin for President Obama in 2012. There are more votes for Malloy to have in these towns, and it is clear the Democratic Party is chasing them. The Malloy campaign, while in New Haven, acknowledged that the goal was to move the margin there from 18,606 up to 20,000. Moving the goal post similarly in the other 15 base towns gives you a sense how the Governor plans to win and how many votes he needs to do so.

• Limit new town losses to three or fewer.

At the same time, if the Governor continues to bleed votes everywhere else, his margin from the base might not make that much of a difference. Malloy already struggled in 2010 to win his share of towns. Losing more risks disaster. Sure a flip in Groton to Foley might be expected as Malloy only won it by 90 votes last time out of nearly 10,000 cast. Groton now is home to the Republican Candidate for LG. There may be another town or two Malloy can afford to lose, but if he starts losing more that, the cities won’t provide enough votes to make it up.

• Make slight gains in some more affluent towns, particularly outside of Fairfield County.

Another area for potential improvement for Malloy is to make gains in the more well-to-do towns outside of Fairfield County. These are the places, such as Guilford or Farmington, where Foley’s embrace of the more divisive parts of the Republican agenda with respect to guns and his acceptance of the endorsement of the Family Institute of Connecticut could harm him. Malloy’s balanced tax increase, while not popular, may also have allayed some fears in these places. Malloy did particularly poorly in these towns in 2010, but he did better in the comparable Fairfield County towns where he was more of a known quantity. Malloy won’t win many new places, but cutting the margin slightly could help him offset losses in towns where the tax increases or gun control bill were met with more disdain.

Conclusion

Since this election is a rematch, using the previous election against which to compare is the perfect way to have a sense of exactly how the race is going on election night. If a set of small changes seem all to be moving in one direction, that will mark a definitive outcome. If, however, we see slight off setting changes, then the key will be to keep track of their size. This race is going to be a squeaker.