These are the precinct-level maps for the Chapel Hill election. The complete set is available here. As with the Carrboro election maps, the maps below are based on unofficial results published on November 8 by the Orange County Board of Elections. And thanks again to Brad for the technical wizardry.
As shown below, the Chapel Hill municipal boundary contains part or all of 22 precincts, including 1 precinct in Durham County.
MAYOR
Like Mark Chilton in Carrboro, incumbent Kevin Foy placed first in every precinct in Chapel Hill. His support was especially strong in the Kings Mill and Mason Farm precincts on the south side of town and in the Northside and Weaver Dairy Satellite precincts. Challenger Kevin Wolff received more than 40% of the vote in the Cedar Falls, Dogwood Acres, and Glenwood precincts.
COUNCIL
The top 3 candidates in the Town Council race--incumbents Sally Greene, Bill Strom, and Jim Ward--shared heavy support on the south side and near downtown. Ward's strong lead in the large Colonial Heights precinct seems to have contributed substantially to his first-place win overall. Challenger Matt Czajkowski took first place in the Cedar Falls, Dogwood Acres, Durham, and Glenwood precincts, which may ultimately put him ahead of incumbent Cam Hill for the still-contested fourth seat on the council. Note that Cedar Falls, Dogwood Acres, and Glenwood were good to both Czajkowski and mayoral challenger Wolff.
Issues:
Comments
Thank you, thank you, thank
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Damon! I find it really interesting to see that every candidate had strengths in different precincts. It seems ot indicate that there are individual constituencies for each one, rather than a general pro- or anti-incumbent wave.
Damon also pointed out that Wolff did well in the same places as Czajkowski, which I think points to a higher percentage of conservative voters in those precincts. If it get time, I will look at the voter reg stats and see if there are more Republicans registered in those precincts than others.
Cedar Falls, Dogwood Acres,
Cedar Falls, Dogwood Acres, and Glenwood all have higher percentages of registered Republicans than the average among Chapel Hill precincts. Cedar Falls also has a higher than average percentage of unaffiliated voters, as does Eastside, where Czajkowski placed second.
Of course, these numbers are for all registered voters, so they might not reflect the characteristics of those who actually voted. However, if candidates were interested in promoting turnout among more conservative voters, these precincts would seem to be reasonable places to start.
It might be misleading to
It might be misleading to assume that "conservative" equals "Republican" these days. As we only have three options for registration (and that makes "unaffiliated" more significant than "Independent"), I think we are seeing more fiscal conservatives in each category.
Matt finished fourth or better in 11 precincts. In the other 11, Cam finished fourth in eight of them, fifth in one and sixth in two.
And it's not taking into
And it's not taking into account those of us who "one stop voted" outside of our precincts, is it?
Good point, Melanie. Neither
Good point, Melanie. Neither the maps nor the registration numbers I cited above take into account the one-stop votes, which made up about 10% of the votes in the Chapel Hill election.
Damon--any chance you could
Damon--any chance you could use a different color coding scheme to make it easier to distinguish the categories from one another? The % screens are simply too close together for my old eyes to be able to tell whether Penny got the same support in Dogwood Acres as Matt did (for example). (I could of course look at the BOE site and tell immediately but I like your maps better!)
Thanks for the tip, Terri.
Thanks for the tip, Terri. I'll see what we can do when we update everything with the official numbers.
In the meantime, if you click on the individual maps above, you will see larger maps along with the precinct-by-precinct numbers. In Dogwood Acres, for example, Czajkowski received 18.6% (first place) and Rich received 12.0% (sixth place).
Hadn't thought to click on
Hadn't thought to click on the maps! Now they're even better than I thought.
Has anyone given any thought to looking at these results on a categorical basis? Fiscal responsibility seemed to be a common theme among the challengers this year. But looking at the combined results of Czajkowski, Raymond, and Rich versus the 3 incumbents of Hill, Greene, and Strom, the incumbents still win.
As I was thinking through this, I couldn't quite decide how to tease out the difference between fiscal responsibility and growth. I excluded Ward from the incumbents because I feel like he is more on the challenger side on this topic. If he is added into the fiscal responsibility category, then there is a clear message from the electorate that there needs to be greater vigilance with respect to finances over the next 4 years. Which seems in line with the mayor's call for developing a concrete implementation strategy for the comprehensive plan. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/orange/story/767379.html
Terri, take a look at the
Terri, take a look at the election graphs by Xan Gregg that Ruby linked to yesterday:
http://www.forthgo.com/blog/2007/11/07/chapel-hill-2007-town-council/
I think the final graph on that page--showing some correlations among incumbents and challengers--might be useful in light of your question about looking at the results on a "categorical basis."