No one is publicly polling the 7th Middlesex Democratic primary contest between State Rep. Jack Lewis and challenger Carlton Phelps. So, I took a look at one of my favorite predictive metrics for a primary race: number of contributors within the voting district. Not total amount raised within the district, but number of contributors.
Not surprisingly, the incumbent is significantly ahead in local contributions. What did surprise me, though, is by how much.
Note that Rep. Lewis’s data is up-to-date for August while Mr. Phelps’s data is only through June, so it’s possible the challenger has had more local contributions since then.
That said, though, based on publicly available data, Mr. Phelps has reported a total of 2 contributions from within the district, both in Ashland. (He had 2 contributors in Framingham, but neither address is in the 7th Middlesex.) In contrast, Rep. Lewis has 97 contributors from the district, based on my analysis, including 43 in Framingham. My analysis involved geocoding each Framingham address to find which are in the district and only counting multiple contributions by one person or organization as one contributor.
Raw contribution data come from the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance starting January 2023, the rest is my own analysis.
My theory behind this number-of-local-contributors metric is that people need to be more motivated in a primary than in a general election to go to the polls. And who is most likely to be motivated to not only vote, but also talk to others about the race and/or volunteer, than someone who’s given money to a candidate?
We’ll see September 3 how this turns out.
If you’re interested in the Governor’s Council race, I did a much more cursory look at that data, without trying to de-dupe entries that are clearly the same but are entered in slightly different ways. (I also assumed all of Braintree is in our Second Governor’s Council District, even though some precincts aren’t). There is no incumbent in this race.
I looked only at data from 2024, although some candidates raised money last year as well.
David Reservitz has around 108 contributors from the district, followed by Tamisha Civil at 82, Muriel Kramer at 46, and Sean Murphy at 44.
Amounts raised within the district: Reservitz $21,585 Murphy $14,020 Civil: $5,750 Kramer: $4,559.
Overall, Reservitz has raised more money than the other three combined: $65,211, vs $19,645 for Murphy, $11,887 for Civil, and $6,115 for Kramer.
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