Big spenders got seats on Cambridge’s council, but war chests were no guarantee in elections (updated)
Election signs on display Sunday in North Cambridge. (Photo: Marc Levy)
City Council candidates who spent more money generally fared better in Tuesday’s election in Cambridge, data from the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance shows.
Of the eight candidates who spent the most money, seven won seats on the council. Councillor Paul Toner, who won reelection, spent the most of any candidate. Since the start of the year, he spent more than $87,000 on election matters, more than double Cathie Zusy’s expenditure of $34,000, the second most. Rounding out the top eight spenders, in order of their expenditures, were Burhan Azeem, Marc McGovern, Patty Nolan, Sumbul Siddiqui, Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, and Joan Pickett, all of whom were elected. Each of these candidates spent at least $20,000.
None of the eight candidates who spent the least money were elected. Ayah Al-Zubi, who spent under $4,000, was the closest of these candidates to earning a seat on the council – she finished 10th in the race for No. 1 votes in the city’s ranked form of balloting. None of the other candidates in this group, who spent at most $7,000, finished in the top 15 vote-getters.
Efficiency
Of the eight candidates who spent the most money per first-place vote, only two won a seat on the council: Toner, who spent $44 per first-place vote, and Pickett, who spent $22. Hao Wang topped the list by spending more than $67 for each of his first-place votes.
Four of the candidates who ran the most efficient campaigns won a seat. Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, Tuesday’s top No. 1 vote-getter, spent about $6.50 for each of her 3,350 first-place votes. Sobrinho-Wheeler, E. Denise Simmons and Ayesha Wilson also ran frugal campaigns. Robert Winters, who expended the least of any candidate, spent $0.03 per vote.
In general, candidates on A Better Cambridge’s slate ran more efficient campaigns than candidates of the Cambridge Citizen Coalition’s slate. ABC candidates, on average, spent $13.32 per first-place vote, while CCC candidates spent $23.85. Though the groups’ candidates spent about the same amount, ABC candidates on average earned double the first-place votes of CCC candidates.
Contributions
Campaign contributions were also an important part of the election. Toner earned more than $80,000 in contributions, the most of any candidate. McGovern, Zusy, Simmons and Azeem, in that order, rounded out the top five.
Earning a lot of money predicted candidates’ success better than spending a lot of money. Candidate spending and first-place votes shared a correlation coefficient of 0.59, meaning that how much a candidate spent was a reasonably strong predictor of how well that candidate performed on election night. Campaign contributions and first-place votes, however, shared a correlation coefficient of 0.71, meaning that how much a candidate earned predicted their electoral success better than how much they spent.
This post was updated Nov. 11, 2023, because the original version used an outdated list. The article refers to data accurate as of Nov. 8.
The power of the incumbency in Cambridge’s unique voting system is such that this alone creates the need for huge (potential) funding disparities. Those who are already on Council (or have been on the School Committee previously) generally need less money to win (to get their names out there) and or hire campaign workers. As you note, ABC’s candidates earned double the first-place votes of CCC candidates. But this is largely because ABC already had four candidates on Council running for reelection (including Mayor, Siddiqui plus Simmons, McGovern, and Azeem). CCC had only two incumbents (Toner and Nolan – Toner switching from ABC to CCC this election). If you consider that two of the three empty seats were taken by CCC candidates (Pickett and Wilson -the latter endorsed by others as well) and that ABC’s Sobrinho-Wheeler was a prior Council member – this too was a significant CCC victory year. And CCC is a much newer group (this is only their third election cycle) AND they also earned two places on the School Committee this year (Hudson and Rojas Villarreal).
The article misses on how much OUTSIDE Cambridge money went into this election for ABC candidates. Only 36% of McGovern’s money came from Cambridge residents and only 44% of Azeem’s money did – less than half. A significant amount of ABC candidate’s funding also came from the building trades (unions) who stand to benefit considerably from their commercial (labs) and residential building (market rate and affordable) agenda. CCC’s agenda is a broader based one (housing yes, but also small businesses, the environment, better government, and a more holistic approach to issues.
Of note as well, in 2021 Siddiqui passed down circa 2,000 extra votes (above quota) as transfers which helped get other ABC candidates like Mallon and McGovern elected. In the 2023 election, Siddiqui’s above quota votes “only” numbered 923 -many, again this year going to support ABC candidates like McGovern.
What is not mentioned in this article is the bicycle advocacy slate that lost some ground. CCC candidates (Pickett and Wilson) filled two of the three empty slots and these replaced three councillors who had signed the bike pledge. Plus this year far fewer candidates were willing to sign the pledge. That is the main election news this year. While ALL candidates support bicyclist safety, some wanted to rethink bike lane structure a bit. Note CCC raised less election money than the bike lobby for whom only 74.9 came from Cambridge residents; 100% of CCC money came from Cambridge residents.
Finally, If you do a statistical analysis of the 2023 election, CCC beat out the other slates in the effectiveness of their transfer votes in bringing wins to other members of the group. Despite all the over-hyped attacks and opposition to CCC and their candidates by members of ABC, DSA, Our Revolution, CRESA, the bike lobby and others – including ripping up or defacing CCC candidate signs in Cambridgeport, North Cambridge, and East Cambridge, CCC has much it can celebrate this year. They ran a smart campaign and one that remained positive to the end. We and others also owe a huge thanks to Robert Winters for keeping up the candidate pages, candidate events data and candidate funding information saving all of our campaigns a lot of time.
Hopefully this new council will attempt to govern for ALL of Cambridge; young and old, renters and home owners, bikers and small business owners.
Personally, I am very happy little Danny Totten is not on this council as that would have been a nightmare for “my” city.
Sore loser much?
Btw your entire screed focuses on narrowing in on winning 2/3 “open seats”, which as a concept doesn’t really make sense in an at large election. I think you justify this by saying that “the power of incumbency in Cambridge unique voting system is such that incumbents needs to raise less money”. Why is that? You don’t really provide any assertion for this. Incumbency is a real advantage of course but why more so here?
@PaulD25 you don’t have to agree with or even like Dan Totten but the way you keep referring to him in a pejorative sense is really weird and messed up, and frankly I’m surprised the site owner even allows it. The elections are over, Dan didn’t win, he won’t be a nightmare for “your” city for these next couple years. Maybe consider doing the mature thing in quietly taking the W and moving on.
Suzanne Blier is an embarrassment for the Harvard faculty. This is the least self-aware post I’ve ever read.
Wow Suzanne. Unnecessary, unhinged rant. Housing won the election.
Amazing to have the leader of cranky wealthy homeowners come in and try to spin that like the less wealthy renters and younger residents of this don’t matter, but that awful attitude shows up in every single one of CCC’s platform issues.
Your total inability to recognize you live in a diverse city is why you lost this election and will continue to lose.
“spin” referring to the campaign finances of this election. Who would’ve guessed other demographics don’t have as much money to give, yet somehow their candidates still won because they will exist in this city.
What a wild thought.
To be a little more specific. It doesn’t seem to occur to Suzanne Blier that landlords, homeowners and drivers are also special interest groups. Embarrassingly ideological. I guess tenure at Harvard can come with a lot of unearned confidence.
For what it’s worth Cambridge’s proportional representation voting system, while less common in the US than elsewhere, is not unique, and I know of no evidence that it increases incumbency advantage. It may in fact decrease the advantage.
What is does do, as the name suggests, is represent the electorate’s preferences proportionately. That means the (admittedly significant) minority of voters who opposes the direction the council has been taking on housing and bike lanes still gets their views represented on the council. I think that’s the better way to do democracy, so I’m for it, but it’s very funny to read claims that somehow disadvantages candidates who oppose these generally popular policies.
I’m not sure if it’s proportional representation that weights incumbency or if it’s just one of those “devil that we know” type of things where an incumbent candidate gets more votes simply because … well … they’re an incumbent and we’ve seen more of them. This election cycle was also one of the most lethargic I’ve ever seen. Very few candidates were really hitting the pavement until after Labor Day. The ones that did have some good numbers to show for it. Burhan campaigned like crazy and so did Marc = results. Money is always a factor but in this election correlation isn’t causation. I’m also not sure anyone can definitively say their issue “won” which to my mind made this the best election outcome I’ve ever seen. Something for everyone.
Honestly the funniest part is – though maybe not, like, ha ha funny – is that if anything young candidates and those who rent (people typically not supported by CCC, though there are some notable exceptions) have a harder time raising money because they’re less likely to be able to loan money to their own campaigns, and their social circles also tend to be less wealthy. Their salaries go to rent, not campaigns. Burhan Azeem is the rare renting young person who did raise a lot of money (though nothing like what Toner did), which frankly I chalk up to Burhan’s popularity.
At the same time, explicitly pro-renter, pro-housing campaigns require *more* funding. Renters move a lot even within Cambridge (I’ve lived here for over a decade, but in 5 different apartments so far) and have to keep re-registering at their new address. Even if they do keep reregistering and stay eligible to vote here, which isn’t a given, that still means they’re harder to reach via canvassing and mailers. And that’s just the people who have to shuffle around within the city; low and middle income people without housing security are constantly being priced out of Cambridge, which means the candidates who speak most to the issues those people tend to care most about, like housing supply affordability and supply, have to draw in new voters every cycle to replace those they’ve lost to rent increases. Candidates who don’t make renters a cornerstone of their campaign don’t have to do that, at least not to the same extent.
Right now my modest donations count as “Cambridge money.” If and when I do get priced out like so many others, I will absolutely still donate to candidates here, and I won’t be ashamed to be “outsider money.”
apologies! *like housing affordability and supply
I have managed several campaigns for Cambridge municipal elections and run for City Council twice. I’ve won some and lost some.
Here is what I’ve observed:
Voters are individuals and have many different motives for their preferences. The vast majority of them do not follow local politics the way Cambridge Day commenters do.
They first depend on friends, neighbors, and family for information. If they have the time, they depend on media, both traditional and social(shudder) for information.
All candidates need to spend time and money to get their message out.
Those who have done this before (incumbents and former candidates) have an advantage over those who have not. Just look at the ballot, which has the words “Candidate for Re-election”, written next to incumbents’ names.
Those who put the time in (door-to-door, letters to the editor, meet-and-greet, forums) have an advantage over those who don’t.
Those that have money have an advantage over those who don’t. Traditionally incumbents have an advantage in fund-raising. And when an incumbent is Mayor, they tend to get more money than the others.
All politics is identity politics. In the end, those candidates who have connected to the individual voter in some personal and familiar way get their vote.
This connection can be superficial (looks, speech, clothing) or it can be deep (experience, accomplishments, education). The most successful candidates make this connection.
Our system of preferential voting and the single transferable ballot is quite unique. It captures these individual connections and translates them into a representative body very well.
I think it is the best way to make sure that our representatives reflect the thousands of unique individuals who take the time to vote. I wish more governmental bodies used it.
Finally, our system works best if all registered voters vote. Only a third of all registered voters did so this year. We can do better. Politics is not a spectator sport.
Thanks to all of the candidates for running.