Reading the Missing Tea Leaves in Providence Mayoral Primary

This may mean nothing, but I noticed something in the primary election results in Providence that readers of tea leaves might want to take into account.

Jorge Elorza won the Democrat primary in the race for mayor of Providence, and a major talking point for both his supporters and those of his most substantial opposition, Michael Solomon, was an ability to beat Buddy Cianci, running as an independent.  With one precinct yet to report, as of this morning, Elorza won with 10,562 votes, to Solomon’s 9,190.  In total, 21,426 Providence residents cast votes in the Democrat primary for mayor.

However, scrolling up to the Democrat gubernatorial results we find, first, that General Treasurer Gina Raimondo beat Providence Mayor Angel Taveras in his own city, and second, that there were a total of 22,315 votes cast.  That’s 889 more than were cast in the mayor’s race.  (Another 995 Providence residents voted in the Republican gubernatorial primary.)

So what?, you might say. The governor’s race is higher profile and probably attracts more interest, even within the city.

The thing is, that hasn’t held true in the recent past.  In 2010, the mayoral candidates attracted 24,206 Democrat votes (11,897 going to Taveras), while Frank Caprio attracted 16,553 unopposed for governor.  If we look to the congressional races, a total of seven candidates took in 21,806 votes.

In 2006, 15,225 Democrats voted for mayor (not counting mail ballots), with David Cicilline taking 11,293 of those, versus Chris Young.  Charles Fogarty took 12,273 unopposed for governor.  The three congressional candidates (spanning two races, remember) took 13,831.

In 2002, the four Democrat mayoral candidates took 26,007 votes (Cicilline receiving 13,826 of those).  By contrast, the three gubernatorial candidates took 24,972 (Democrat, non-mail) votes.

It’s a messy comparison, because every election has different dynamics, but as a general rule, more people have tended to vote in the Democrat primary for mayor than for governor.  Why didn’t that happen this year?  And (while we’re asking open-ended questions), what might it mean for all of those assumptions about ethnic votes that Elorza didn’t quite top Taveras’s mayoral total, and that Taveras failed to win his own city in the governor’s race?  (Two notes on the Elorza point: I’m not 100% the 2010 data excludes mail ballots, while the 2014 data does; there’s still a precinct missing from this year’s results.)

What, too, will be the influence of Republican Dan Harrop on the race?

Again, I don’t know enough about Providence to answer these questions, but I thought them worth asking.

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