What Was Daggett's Influence?

I was talking to a colleague this morning about Daggett's influence. He was sure that Daggett took votes away from Corzine. I was sure that he took votes away from Christie. I'm sure we're both right -- he took votes from both -- but from which candidate did he take the most?

A useful Web page at the The Progress provides a detailed breakdown of votes in West Essex. The towns involved are Essex Fells, Fairfield, North Caldwell, Roseland, and West Caldwell. I'm using them because they are in Assembly District 27, served by John McKeon and Mila Jasey. I'm in West Orange, which is also part of that district.

All of these towns voted for Republicans Mark Meyerowitz and Barry Funt over incumbent Democrats McKeon and Jasey, and also voted for Christie over Corzine. It's possible that they could have voted Republican in the Assembly race and Democratic in the Gubernatorial race, but let's say that most people don't. (The difference in votes between McKeon and Jasey aren't that different[*]; nor are the votes between Meyerowitz and Funt.) What can we learn from that?

In the Assembly race, they had two choices: Republicans and Democrats. In the Gubernatorial race, they had three choices. If Daggett pulled votes away from Corzine, we'd expect the Corzine-to-Christie ratio to be smaller than the Assembly Democrat-to-Republican ratio. If Daggett pulled votes away from Christie, we'd expect the Corzine-to-Christie ratio to be larger than the Assembly Democrat-to-Republican ratio.

Got that?

Let's put it this way: In Essex Fells, 24% of the votes for Assemblymen went to McKeon and Jasey; 76% went to Meyerowitz and Funt. Essex Fells voters voted for Republicans 3.2 times more often than for Democrats. Did they vote for Christie 3.2 times more often than for Daggett?

As it turns out: yes. Well, 3.1 times more often, but close enough.

You can ask, "Where would the Daggett votes have gone if he hadn't been in the race?" If you assume that they would have voted Republican instead, the ratio gets too high (3.4); if you pretend that they would have voted Democratic, the ratio gets too low (2.3). It looks like the Daggett voters split evenly: his influence didn't change the ratio of Republican-to-Democratic votes.

In fact, Daggett seems to have made very little difference at all in these towns, but where he made a difference, he helped Christie. Here's how the rest of them look:

Town	%R votes / %D votes (Assembly)	Pretend Daggett's voters split evenly	Pretend they'd have voted Republican	Pretend they'd have voted Democrat
Essex Fells	3.2	3.1 (best fit)	3.4	2.3
Fairfield	2.8	2.8 (best fit)	3.0	2.3
North Caldwell	1.8	1.9 (best fit)	2.1	1.6
Roseland	1.4	1.8	2.0	1.4 (best fit)
West Caldwell	1.5	1.7	2.0	1.4 (best fit)

Based on those results, it looks like Daggett helped the Republicans somewhat in these Republican-leaning towns.

Now, not everywhere is such a Republican-leaning area. McKeon and Jasey actually won reelection in the 27th District -- the overall ratio of Republican to Democrat votes for the Assembly's 27th is 0.6 (i.e., voters were 1.7 times more likely to vote Democrat).

So I think we need to find more detailed breakdowns like this for Democratic areas and perform the same calculations to see Daggett's influence there. But for these Republican-leaning towns at least, I stand corrected: Daggett helped Christie.

* The difference between McKeon and Jasey is interesting: McKeon consistently got 10-15% more votes than Jasey did. Meyerowitz and Funt were within 0-2% of each other. I have no idea why, but if the difference is consistent, which it roughly is, then it shouldn't matter to the comparisons. [return]

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