Over-performance in Fitchburg pushed Tran over the top in Worcester and Middlesex special election

Zephir slightly over-performed compared to a modeled result in most other towns
by BRENT BENSON

Republican Fitchburg City Councilor Dean Tran defeated three other opponents, including Democratic Leominster City Councilor Sue Chalifoux Zephir, to replace State Senator Jen Flanagan in the Worcester and Middlesex senate district by a margin of 607 votes (unofficial results).

Tran's victory was mainly due to a staggering 19 point victory in his home city of Fitchburg, which has a strong lean towards Democrats in most elections. Fitchburg has a Partisan Voter Index (PVI) of D+9. Our state legislative regression model predicted a Democratic vote share of 56% for an open seat in a non-presidential year.



Sue Chalifoux Zephir out-performed the model in most of the other municipalities, including an 11 point over-performance in the much-smaller town of Sterling, and kept it reasonably close in the others.

Zephir would have stood a better chance if she could have built a home field advantage in Leominster, similar to Tran's in Fitchburg, but fellow City Councilor Claire Freda came within range of Tran and Zephir with over a thousand votes, by far Freda's strongest showing in any municipality. It seems that Freda's success in Leominster prevented Zephir from running up the numbers in the largest vote-producing city in the district.

Senator-elect Tran will serve out the rest of the current term and will be up for re-election next November, 2018. He will have the advantage of incumbency, but will face a much larger Democratically motivated electorate in a highly-charged mid-term election.

A look at the Worcester and Middlesex State Senate special election

Another classic swing district special election
by BRENT BENSON

There is a special election today to fill the vacant Worcester and Middlesex state senate seat, left vacant by former Senator Jen Flanagan who left to take a seat on the newly-created MA Cannabis Control Commission. There are four candidates vying for the seat: Leominster City Councilor and Democratic nominee Sue Chalifoux Zephir; Fitchburg City Councilor and Republican nominee Dean Tran; Green-Rainbow nominee Charlene DiCalogero; and Leominster City Councilor Claire Freda, who is running as an independent.

The District

The Worcester and Middlesex is a classic swing district with a Partisan Voter Index (PVI) of D+2. While it has been held by a Democrat since 1991, a slightly different configuration of the district was held for many years by Republicans Mary Padula of Lunenburg and Robert A. Hall of Fitchburg.

(Click here for an interactive version of the map.)

The precincts range from the D+22 Fitchburg 5-B to the R+10 Townsend 1st, which is in the top 20 most Republican precincts in the state.



The cities of Clinton, Gardner, and Fitchburg are fairly blue along with the towns of Berlin and Bolton, while the remaining towns of Lancaster, Lunenburg, Sterling, Townsend, and Westminster, with Townsend leading the way with an overall PVI of R+7.

Fundraising

Democrat Sue Chalifoux Zephir raised and spent over twice as much money as GOP candidate Dean Tran across the pre-primary and pre-election periods, while independent candidate Claire Freda and Green-Rainbow candidate Charlene DiCalogero were off the pace by an order of magnitude.



Fundraising and spending are not determining factors, but they are a strong indication of candidate strength.

Special Election

The race is essentially a toss-up in our model, with the slightest advantage given to the GOP in a non-presidential election year without an incumbent, although a Democratic win by 10 points could easily happen within the model's 90% confidence interval.

While 3rd party and independent candidates, on average, play a very small role in most races with Democrats and Republicans winning the lion's share of the votes, they can play an important role when the margins are very small. While I believe that Sue Chalifoux Zephir will dominate among progressives and Democrats, Claire Freda—a well-known Leominster City Councilor—was endorsed by the Fitchburg Sentinel, and has a chance to take some votes from the major party candidates.

The state party establishments have been all-in on this race with every major Massachusetts Democrat putting in work for Zephir, while Charlie Baker has worked hard for Tran, and the state GOP has delivered some last minute attack ads on Zephir in the closing day of the race.

There is no easy pick for the winner of the Worcester and Middlesex special election, with the race coming down to a slight GOP lean in the model vs. strong fundraising by Zephir and a seemingly pro-Democratic atmosphere indicated in several special elections so far this year.