Statistically, Hope went from 25% in the primary to 53%. Rubinstein essentially stayed the same at 47%. This means that Rubinstein kept all of his votes, and virtually 100% of the other votes went to Hope. This would then means that Hope was everyone’s second choice. I don’t believe this. Voting patterns don’t work that way.

In normal situations, without other influences, these votes would be split, with a minimum of 20% going to any particular candidate. More likely 30%+ minimum. If so, Rubinstein, even at 20%, easily wins. This did not happen. In many cases I’ve reviewed it is typically more towards a 40/60% split.

I can’t show another election that this type of result occurs without a significant event occurring. Particularly a negative event to one of the candidates. One case in Broward County years ago was the arrest of a city candidate (who had been an interim appointment) the night before the election. Buddy, you probably covered it. The candidate otherwise would probably had won, but the final numbers showed a major drop in votes on election day, going to 2nd to last out of 11 candidates. There was significant press coverage on this even though a city election. Just like this situation. I know of no other reasonable explanations.

The only action that occurred in this time period was the firing of Till. I also recall a lot of press coverage on this firing, and it was the talk of many voters. Phyllis Hope, in this time period did not have a major positive shift or event in her campaign to explain such a large change towards her. Therefore I concluded Rubinstein lost the election.

FROM BUDDY:

I don’t believe that the vote between the primary and the general are always split. When challengers are running against an incumbent, their supporters go with the remaining challenger. Obviously these voters didn’t like the incumbent.

What you should look at is the percentage of votes for the incumbent in the primary. There is no reason that the percentage would differ in the larger voter pool brought out in a general election.

Actually, Rubinstein gained a lot of votes between the primary and runoff/general election.

Just not enough.

He had roughly 6,700 in the primary and increased the total to 23,600 – 16,900.

Hope gained more, about 23,400 votes between the primary and runoff/general.

There have been lots of campaigns where the leading candidate in the primary stayed with exactly the same percentage in the general election. I checked out just one—Lawton Chiles’ 1970 U. S. Senate campaign against Ferris Bryant.

Chiles increased his percentage from something like 26 to 66 percent between the primary and runoff. Bryant went from 33 to 34 percent.

She wants Hope because she can be pushed around and maybe controlled by Dinnen and BTUseless!

As far as past chairs, remember Carter was pushed out by BTUseless because she would kiss their butts so Gotlieb was pushed in!

We need fine folks like Carter who will not bend to special interest and work for the people who elected them!

I find it hard to believe that the 27,012 voters who cast their ballots for Hope cared about Frank Till. Or even knew who he was.

Some Browardbeat.com readers say they were at the polls during the 2006 election and talked to dozens of voters. That is anecdotal evidence at best.

The fact is that no one knows why Rubinstein lost. The only way to find out is to do a statistically accurate survey of the district voters.

Everything else is speculation.

There are all kinds of intangibles in voting.

Browardbeat.com’s pollster Jim Kane has told me many times that only a minority of voters actually study the issues and know something about the candidates. This is especially true in a race as low on the ballot as School Board.

The rest vote for reasons that are often imponderable.

There are anti-incumbency feelings evident in every race.

Statistical evidence has show that some voters will chose a woman over a man, especially in a School Board race.

Some might just like the name Hope over Rubinstein.

Some blacks may vote for Hope, while Jews might vote for Rubinstein.

Some might just not like Hope’s appearance. Or Rubinstein.

What began this debate was my answer to another person’s comment. The comment above is: “The really reason why Hope was elected was become the business community was really upset with Marty for voting to fire Till.”

My answer is that the “business community” has only one way of influencing races: campaign contributions. I pointed out that if the “business community” was really so upset, why did Rubinstein collect more than three times the money?

Also, Rubinstein got almost every endorsement including the pro-Till Sun-Sentinel, the unions and most of the business community.

Rubinstein did exactly what many candidates do in a primary: Hit his high point.

He got almost the same percentage in the primary as the general 46-47 percent.

Hope picked up the anti-incumbent vote.

If he had voted to retain Till, or had the vote delayed until after the election, he would have won.

Hope won because she was in the right place at the right time. She didn’t win the election, Rubenstein lost it.