In my previous entry I described an interesting observation about the demographics and voting patterns in Pennsylvania. I noticed that the sum of two numbers, the Percentage of residents with a Bachelor’s Degree age 25+ and the Percentage of Non-White residents, seemed to correlate with the likelihood of voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump…. (read more)
Introduction Well, so much for going back to writing about old roads. I was hoping to put my election file away and literally move on. The “stunning” upset of Tuesday night has forced me to pull out the ‘Election 2016’ file and look over it again. I also reviewed the three articles I wrote about… (read more)
As Election Day approaches all manner of wild and crazy claims are made in a desperate hope to get one group or another to the polls or, as I discussed in previous entries, to entice some voters to stay home. One of the major methods of attack is to cite polls showing one or the… (read more)
1. Polls and Pundits People don’t change, populations change. I know this sounds deterministic and seems to preclude the possibility of free will but, as far as voting habits are concerned, I think it is fundamentally true as I will argue in this article. It is a useful mantra I repeat to myself frequently during… (read more)
As I waited for luggage at the Terminal A baggage carousel in Logan Airport recently, I noticed a promotion on a nearby wall for Boston’s Grove Hall neighborhood. The poster advertises all the great things waiting to be discovered in the neighborhood. Visit Franklin Park Zoo! Tee up at William Devine Golf Course! Explore Olmsted’s… (read more)
Recently fishermen on a boat off the coast near Beverly found a rare blue lobster in one of their traps. According to the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, blue lobsters turn up about once for every two million lobsters harvested. The carapace (shell) of an uncooked wild lobster (Homarus americanus) is typically a… (read more)
“Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn’t pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1858. This quote recorded by Holmes is the source of the famous nickname… (read more)
In my most recent post I examined the election results of the largest cities in America. I chose the 26 largest cities based on US Census Bureau data, cities which each had a population of more than 600,000. I also discussed some problems with the data set, as I also did in a post from… (read more)
Boston has a reputation as a very liberal city. I have been a student of Boston elections for over two decades and my research suggests that the city is not as liberal as its national reputation warrants. Is it possible to determine the relative “liberalness” of Boston? Part of this project is dedicated to analyzing… (read more)
It is almost election day. What? There’s an election? There is an election in Boston every November. Every 4 years of course is the Presidential election, as well as a host of down the ticket races, including Congress. The year following is the quadrennial election for Mayor of Boston as well as for the City… (read more)
