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Reader Poll: What was the Biggest Upset of Election Night?

Empty-voting-boothWell the votes have been cast and counted, and the nominees for November are now (mostly) set.

Tuesday had its fair share of expected events, primarily the landslide victory by Tom Wolf in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Nevertheless, there were some outcomes that took political prognosticators by surprise.

Marjorie Margolies, for instance, made national headlines for all the wrong reasons when she came up short in PA-13. Despite the former Congresswoman’s connections to the Clinton family, State Rep. Brendan Boyle emerged victorious.

In HD-164 State Rep. Margo Davidson faced two primary challengers, and engendered passionate progressive opposition, yet survived.

Meanwhile, State Sen. Leanna Washington narrowly lost her bid for re-election. In the end, it appears the legal indictments against the Senator were too much to overcome and Art Haywood prevailed.

Additionally, State Rep. Mark Cohen outlasted opponent Jared Solomon in a bitter primary contest, with the incumbent securing a victory of less than 200 votes.

Finally, in a real shocker, State Rep. Mike Fleck lost out to “write-in” votes. Now, it will take time to confirm if enough write-in votes are valid and support one candidate but even if he survives, this is quite an embarrassment for the four-term legislator.

So, dear readers, what do you think was the biggest upset of the 2014 primary elections?

What was the biggest upset of election night?


  • HD-81: Write-In over Fleck (52%)
  • PA-13: Boyle over Margolies (29%)
  • SD-4: Haywood over Washington (8%)
  • HD-202: Cohen over Solomon (8%)
  • HD-164: Davidson over Smith and Zhang (4%)

Total Voters: 735

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26 Responses

  1. Unsanctioned R-
    The reason that the data is only $20 is thanks to Philly City Commissioner, Stephanie Singer. About 7 years ago she sued the state to make the data available at cost-of-production. Prior to that, the data was well over $1,000. (@ $20, I update around 8 times per year, and VAN is only at 2 or 3 times)

    If VAN’s monopoly can’t put me out of business, I’m not worried about you doing it. Also, I sell only to Dems/Progressives, so you can have the R’s to yourself. (If I sold to R’s I would make a killing, because my Dems tell me that their R’s “friends” at the polls complain how hard it is for them to get good data).

    But, I’m doing A LOT more than regurgitating a flat file back to the users. Lots of value-added and unique reports, with targeting options. Even my method of voter scoring is unique. But, unlike VAN, I don’t shut off accounts the day after the election and have candidates lose their data.

    Overall, building a web-based user interface that hundreds of (often novice) committee people can use with little or no training, and accommodate all their different approaches has been the biggest challenge. Fortunately, since I wrote the whole thing, I’ve been able to adapt it, without compromising its “vision”.

  2. David, you have a fine product that has much more value at your price point than competitors. But, I believe in democratizing free data. Thank goodness PA only charges $20. Other states I operate in charge thousands.
    Candidates shouldn’t be scared into buying something they don’t need. It’s a good sales pitch, but you act like manipulating flat files is rocket science. It’s plug and chug and all vendors know it. The reason why more programmers don’t market it is because it’s a race to the bottom. You gotta love what you do like you do, but for most of us, the seasonality for the money isn’t worth it. Plus, I really don’t want to put you out of business, just want to empower entrepreneurial candidates…because it’s not that hard and can be worth the savings for cash-strapped campaigns.

  3. Unsanctioned R-

    You can sit there anonymously and make up whatever you want. How many people are you going to claim have used anything you’ve done? I’m sure the truth is close to zero.

    I’ve got hundreds of users on my system, and have been up and running for years. A lot my users prefer my system to VoteBuilder (sorry VAN). Some find it a good supplement to VoteBuilder (or them a supplement to mine).

    Either way, I’m actually out in the real world providing a service that people like, and find useful. You, on the other hand, are anonymously spouting off on a blog and have no credibility.

    The big money candidates pay $60,000 a piece for statewide VAN/VoteBuilder. While I agree that’s overprices, you want to pretend that all they really need is $20 and a few lines of code from you.

    I don’t know what the R’s charge for their system, but you should be able to make a killing if it’s comparable.

    Unless you are going to come out of hiding behind your anonymity and show us something, you are about as credible as the Schwartz staffers claiming they were going to dazzle us with their ground game.

    If we were playing poker, this would be the point where I call your bluff, you fold, and I collect the winnings on the table.

  4. Wrong again David. I’ve done it as have many others. That’s why I can’t stop laughing at your conceited soliloquy.
    Mapping is plug and chug. Do it once and it’s done. Highschool.

  5. Unsanctioned R-

    First of all, the data problems are not restricted merely the address.
    But more importantly, change of address would be the completely wrong approach. The voter file (flawed as it may be) represents the official record of were people are registered to vote. If you use an altered address for a voter, it won’t match the only precinct where they are allowed to vote.

    Identifying the elections/super-voters is not 4-lines of code.

    Each of the 67 counties uses a different mapping for which fields of their table corresponds to which election. So, you’ve got to handle 67 mappings.

    You also have to deal with precincts that are split between two legislative districts, or two school districts or two congressional districts, etc. (and determine the reason for the split).

    Oh, and the legislative/senate districts listed in the file aren’t always correct.

    Do you plan to load 8 million records (5 GB) of data into MS Access?

    How would offices at remote locations get the data? What kinds of searches can they do? What interface would you provide?

    Can you do it as an online database with a web interface?

    The bottom line is that you don’t know the first thing about programming and are just babbling.

  6. That’s true, Pawlowski didn’t quite last as long as Hangar.
    But you overstate what you get for the $. Any highschooler with an A in CS1 and a few hundred dollars for NCOA can run everything in-house for you.

  7. Unsanctioned R, while i will agrue that VAN is a much better and more sophisticated tool than Voterweb (sorry David) there is no way that just using the raw data instead of using a system like either of the ones mentioned above is a good plan. Running any type of efficient field program or even mail program without the two is almost impossible. It’s worth the money spent to use something like VAN or Voterweb.

  8. I can identify supervoters in 4 lines of code.
    Maybe it’s difficult for you.

  9. Unsanctioned R-
    Pawlowski didn’t even bother to file petitions. So, not sure why he’d even need to spend the $20.
    You should have been helping Guzzardi. Your keen mind and help could have prevented him from attempting petitions in the first place.

    BTW, if you had any idea about the raw file from the state, you’d know how utterly difficult it is to use it to identify super-voters (and also, that’s it has a lot of data problems that need cleanup).

  10. Pawlowski used my voter file. Cost him $20 and did just as well as all but 1 of the candidates.

  11. Mark Smith carying quite a few counties and coming in the top 3 in many of them was a suprise. The biggest upset was Fleck being beaten by write-ins by the narrow minded folks in Huntingdon county, although that shouldn’t be a surprise.

  12. Mark Smith did great. We loved his ads and humble start in life. He’s got a bright future in Democratic politics.

  13. Unsanctioned R and Philly Progressive-

    You guys love being wrong. I did have one of the Gov candidates, Hanger, who used my system during petitions, but (despite gathering enough signatures) he dropped out due to fundraising issues relative to the other candidates.

    He and his staff liked my system, and one of his ex-staffers used my system this primary to win a write-in election for himself.

    Wolf, McCord and Schwartz each paid the state party $60,000 for VAN’s voter data.

    No system is going to be much to help candidates who can’t get on the air or raise money (or who shoot themselves in the foot).

    Schwartz’s self-acclaimed ground game, and ward endorsements, were no match for Wolf’s TV ads.

    Philly Prog.- I’ve discussed and posted plenty of price sheets. You just haven’t paid attention.

    If you like to run for office, and find out more, then contact me. If you wish to remain ignorant, then continue on your current course.

  14. I’d disagree that Critz would’ve been throwing money away on ads he just isn’t liked! He couldn’t raise money or endorsements!
    Smiths votes were impressive, and Really the bottom 4 were all close and all very far away from Stack! With all the hype out there on Critz he should’ve done way better and it shows those polls are a joke!

  15. The surprise may have been that fewer than 900,000 Democratic voters were drawn to the polls after more than 20 million dollars was spent on the gubernatorial primary … fewer voters than the 2010 race. The banality of the offerings may have disinspired the turnout or perhaps the realization among more and more citizens that there is no choice to Corbett only an echo.

  16. David Diano, Excellent insight.

    Which one of the Gubernatorial campaigns was using your voter file?

    This seems like a great post to respond with a full throated sales pitch about why your voter file is the best. Please include a pricing sheet.

  17. Mark Smith coming that close had nothing to do with him. It was because lower information races are decided on perceived heritage, gender, and geography. Mark Smith is a very common name and when people saw Bradford County on their ballots, many associated him with being from the City of Bradford in McKean County. He had zero ground game and spent virtually no money. This result is almost comparable to the fake Bob Casey that won a few years back. If Critz would have run TV ads, he would have come much closer to Stack.

  18. I agree with David the hype and now we all know was all BS.Schwartz tried to scare away the competition.

  19. Republikkkans are so disgustingly bigoted they’d choose “write-in” instead of sending a gay conservative Republican to Harrisburg.

  20. Mark Smith was a great candidate and is a great person. I don’t think his placement was an upset– if people could have met/heard more about him, he would have taken the whole thing. This is just the beginning for him!

  21. I think the biggest surprise was inside the Schwartz campaign when their “greatest ground game in the history of politics” netted just under 33% in Philly. 🙂

  22. I think the biggest surprise was Mark Smith in the LG’s race nearly beating a former congressman for 2nd place.

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    Total Voters: 30

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