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TIER 5 Tue, 17 Dec 2024 17:48:06 +0000
Remember the golden rule: correlation isn't necessarily causation! ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ | | ---|---|--- | | | Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more --- # Analyzing The Recall Of Pamela Price ### Remember the golden rule: correlation isn't necessarily causation! | | Darrell Owens --- | Dec 17 --- | --- --- | | | --- | | --- | | --- | | --- | | READ IN APP --- | | ---|---|--- This is the precinct map of the recall of Pamela Price, with majority pro-recall in green and anti-recall in purple. This map and more Alameda County elections are available at darrellowens.io/ac_election_2024 _Usual disclaimer: opinions expressed below represent my own personal thoughts and do not represent the opinions of my employer or any organizations for which I 'm a member of._ -- * Click Here for a map of Alameda County's newly released 2024 Precinct Election Results. **Select Option 39:"Recall Pamela Price".** * Click Here for a map of Alameda County's 2022 Precinct Election results. Select "District Attorney" to see Pamela Price's election results two years ago. -- I was part of the 37% of Alameda County residents who voted against the recall of Pamela Price because I believe the recall system should not be used for non-criminal political disagreements. The recall became one of the most followed races in the country, especially as the Oakland area made national headlines for being ravaged by crime and ensuing disinvestment. The recall organizers (who consisted of wealthy Piedmont funders and some Oakland families victimized by violent crime) and Pamela Price's office had an array of controversial incidents these last two years, but the recallers won with 63% voting to prevent Price from completing her term. Pamela Price had ran multiple times by now and marginally won in the lower turnout midterm of 2022 when Nancy O'Malley refused to run again. Price won in the aftermath of progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin being bounced by San Francisco voters. Boudin's experience was a useful guide on what to do as a progressive prosecutor. Price would have to have an extremely close and open relationship with the East Bay press. She would need to emphasize that she's hard on prosecuting criminal activity and de-emphasize progressive reformist politics which was more grandiose than what she was actually proposing. She would need to have close communications with Asian community groups, social media and publications. 140,000 Asians moved to or were born in Alameda County in the last decade and she owed her 2022 victory due to this growing constituency giving her a shot. Unfortunately, Price didn't do these things and was mired in criticism from within and outside her office about access to unfavorable press, failing to articulate her policies through media, and disgruntled staff alleging bigotry. After witnessing my Fremont neigbors espouse anti-Price rhetoric based on misinformation, I personally talked to her staff and made the most minor criticism that they should be more proactive with Asian and Hispanic social media and publications. I was told I didn't know what I was talking about. I've seen this kind of endemic defensiveness from progressives before where any call for correction or competence is perceived as sabotage or ignorance. Everyone knew Pamela Price was going to get recalled in 2024 and the results were decisive but 63 - 37 was not as big of a blowout as I expected relative to the two years of outcry. I wanted to find out which communities voted for the recall but because Alameda County is run incompetently, I mapped the precinct results myself. I was eager to do some statistical analysis on the recall and see what demographic or political lessons can be concluded going forward. Unlike the nation's rightward shift in the presidential election, you cannot blame Price's recall on poor turnout. 2024 turnout was much higher than the 2022 election which Price owes her victory. Turnout for the 2024 Election was up in every neighborhood and she lost. 2022 voter turnout is on the left and 2024 on the right with the exact same color-scale. For example, the low-income Ashland precinct jumped from 36% to 56%. Price won in 2022 with slim 53 - 47 margins and breaking even in many Asian heavy precincts. To be recalled, all she needed to do was lose a few precincts in Oakland Chinatown or Fremont from her 2022 election results and it was game over. Chinatown (which is combined with Jack London Square) voted for Price 60 - 40 in 2022 and in 2024 they recalled her 55 - 45. Down in Fremont she lost most neighborhoods in 2022 to her conservative opponent by slim margins, but now she lost nearly every precinct by decisive 70 - 30 margins. In 2022, Price's strength outside Oakland and Berkeley was in Hispanic heavy Hayward and unincorporated communities along the East 14th - Mission Blvd. corridor. In 2024, virtually every precinct south of 73rd Avenue - Oakland all the way down to the Santa Clara County border -- a length of 25.5 miles -- voted to recall Price with a 70 - 30 average. Ashland, which is 44% Hispanic, 23% Asian (many Southeast), and boasts a relatively low household income of $75,000 voted to oust Price. Its poorest precinct, median household income of $48,023 and 24% in federal poverty levels, voted 69 - 31 to recall. Visually speaking, Price's few bright-spots were in areas expericing high population growth in White people and people with advanced college degrees, which probably saved her from a supermajority blowout. Look at my Census map of demographic change of white people between 2010 - 2020 in Oakland and Berkeley, then compare it against the recall map. The left image shows strong white population growth in the North, West Oakland - South Berkeley area. The right image shows the high anti-Recall margins corresponding with those communities. Several White growth spots elsewhere explain anti-recall outlier zones in otherwise pro-recall areas. The most significant growth in White people east of Lake Merritt was in four Oakland neighborhoods: Eastlake, Highland, Dimond District and Maxwell Park. Those are also the only neighborhoods where Pamela Price either won or came to a draw. The epicenter of anti-recall sentiment is located in the Greater Temescal precincts of North Oakland and South Berkeley; these are highest growth-rate in Whites anywhere in the East Bay. The visuals are nice but 50-50 margins flipping purple or green can overstate results, therefore I used for a linear regression to determine if demographic change was correlating with the Recall results. I recreated the precinct's demographics by using Census block data and summed it to the precinct level. Nearly all blocks had a corresponding Census tract but a small amount did clip into other tracts or were far out in rural areas and were discarded. These precincts usually had very few or no votes. | | ---|---|--- Linear regression results of demographic change and share of pro-Recall votes in the East Bay. First, I compared the demographic change of Whites, Blacks, Asians and Latinos between 2010 and 2020 against the percentage points of pro-Recall votes. I used the absolute number of population changes (e.g. -1,000 Latinos; +400 Asians) because precincts usually, not always, are grouped together for similar population numbers. Regressions based on net percentage change (e.g. +140% Latinos; -50% Asians) exaggerated small bases of growth and percentage point changes (e.g. 66.7% Latino to 76% Latino) would shrink even as that ethnic population increases in total numbers. Surprisingly, areas with major Asian and Hispanic population growth weren't statistically significant correlations with pro-Recall votes. White and Black growth or decline was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.05) and had identical, but opposite, co-efficients (black r-squared: -0.016%. white r-squared: 0.016%). For every 100 new Black residents, votes to recall Price increased by 1.61% percentage points while votes to retain Price's increase by 1.162% for every 100 new white residents. The White resident growth correlating with Price support makes sense from what we've seen; the Black resident growth I don't understand yet. This is correlation, not necessarily causation. Note that voter turnout is not the same as total population in a precinct. Price had strong support in the Longfellow neighborhood of North Oakland which grew by 982 Whites and shrunk by 984 Blacks in the 2010s. Applying these co-efficients, 982 in-migration Whites correlates with 15.9% Against the Recall. (e.g. If the precinct otherwise voted 50% Yes on Recall, 982 more Whites would correlate with Yes votes going down to 34.1% Yes). There's 2,882 votes total in Longfellow while the total population of Longfellow is 6,097, so about 47% of the population is voting. Next, I compared how much a community being a percentage Black, White, Asian or Latino in 2020, informed whether it voted for the recall. This will be more instructive of votes overall than the prior regression and the model's p-value agree. All racial groups impact on votes were identified as statistically significant (p-value < 0.05) -- but not equally important or impactful. | | ---|---|--- Note that the percentages of Yes on Recall votes and Racial percentages were multiplied by 100 in the dataset. For every 1% increase in the share of Latinos, Asians or Whites in a precinct, the vote to recall Price increased by 0.24%, 0.19% and 0.07% percentage points respectively. Although the White population's p-value is below the 0.05 threshold, there's a nearly 4.8% chance this data for the White population is irrelevant, compared to the under 0.01% chance for Latinos, Asians and the Black population. The coefficients also show that for every 1% a Black a precinct is, the recall declines plummeted by nearly half a percent. Mostly White precincts voting to recall Price yet whiter precincts becoming one of Price's biggest defenders seems to confirm the "gentrification" theory. Younger Whites moving into urban neighborhoods Oakland and Berkeley were Price's biggest supporters, while older, suburban, well-established White communities in the East Bay suburbs and hills generally voted against Price. But the biggest surprise follows national trends: Latino precincts were the biggest predictors of supporting of the recall. Most of the discourse about the recall has been from supporters talking about the Asian community and Black victim families and anti-recallers emphasizing the White aspect of the recallers. But the quiet recallers correlated with the Hispanic communities, which comprises around 60-70% of Fruitvale, 50% of deep East Oakland, 30% of San Leandro neighborhoods along East 14th, and 50 - 60% of the Ashland, Cherryland and Hayward neighborhoods along Mission Blvd. In the 2022 election, Hispanic majority precincts were discernable in a streak of pro-Pamela Price votes in a trench surrounded by anti-Price White area votes. These same Hispanic communities with over 50% turnout were voting 65 - 35 against Price. The key to Price's loss was solid middle class Asian and Hispanic communities like Newark, which encapsulates the demographic trajectory of the East Bay. In 2022, Newark broke from wealthier Fremont and backed Price 55 - 45. Two years later, most Newark precincts were against her: 70 - 30. Urban Asian communities in Oakland such as Eastlake which is 40% Asian (and declining) voted 55 - 45 against the recall. Although it flips into strong Recall terriority east of 14th Avenue in San Antonio where many low-income Southeast Asians live and struggle with the region's worst dumping issues and disinvestment. On the left: precincts in Green voted for Pamela Price in 2022. On the right: precincts in Green voted to Recall Pamela Price in 2024. The working class Hispanic E. 14 - Mission Blvd streak which backed Price have been erased. I need to emphasize that my data is a simple linear regression that's just fitting voter trends against demographic data. **The R-squared for the racial composition of precinct data was 27.6% and the demographic change was 26%, and these probably overlap**. This data may only explain 1/4th of why Alameda County voted as it did. Lastly, these votes are not immutable characteristics of races, rather they reflect the current politics of diverse and segregated communities. 60 - 40 still means 40% of a community voted no. Price made history as the first Black district attorney for Alameda County and yet the Black enclaves of East Oakland -- which have been ravaged by a crime wave harming local businesses -- sided with the Recall. Because the margins in these areas were often 60 - 40 in favor of the recall, a theory could be that the Black community was evenly split or even majority pro-Price and were outvoted by a growing Latino population. The two blackest precincts in Oakland are the Castlemont neighborhood and the central part of West Oakland. Both precincts -- 51% Black -- by a margin of 55-45 voted to recall Pamela Price. The Black community is diverse in local politics and East Oakland, which is heavy with Black homeowners, tends to vote for moderate, center-left and pro-police candidates. Areas with more Black renters like West Oakland tends to vote for more progressive-left candidates. That explains some of the discrepancy between East and West Oakland broadly. Pamela Price changed very few minds in my hometown of Berkeley. Several wealthy and highly-educated precincts that backed her by 50-50 in the last election voted against the recall by 51-49 and results citywide were fairly constant. The exception was lower income West Berkeley which dropped from 70 - 30 for Price to 60 - 40. Not a single precinct flipped from 2022 to 2024. The opposite was true in Alameda city. Except for Bay Island Farm which never supported Price, _every_ single precinct in Alameda voted to eject her two years later. Berkeley follows the national trend in voter polarization by educational attainment and news sources. Despite being a small town, Berkeley is inundated with local news: Berkeleyside, The Berkeley Scanner, The Daily Californian, Berkeley Times, The Berkeley Voice, The East Bay Times and those are just the daily and weekly publications. Most Berkeleyans knew exactly who they were voting for in 2022 so there was no buyer's remorse. Every time a violent crime happened in Berkeley, local media coverage focused on the police department, not necessarily Pamela Price. Most of Alameda County (and the country) has no in-depth local news and no daily publications. When I lived in Fremont, most of my neighbors got their information from Asian-language social media, the Epoch Times or the East Bay Times. Most other communities in the East Bay have nothing except Patch.com articles recycling content from local political blogs, social media or chamber of commerce press releases. Hayward, our third largest city in Alameda County, has no non-partisan local news whatsoever. In the absent of accurate local reporting, people depend on social media for their news. Viral videos of frequent crime trends plaguing the East Bay such as freeway gang shootings, theft-ring store mobbings, violent robberies of elderly Asians, illegal street races and sideshows, illegal dumping in Oakland, the commercial decline of the OAK Airport Hegenberger area etc. -- are all real issues but almost always are irrelevant to the policy of the District Attorney. The idea that police won't arrest these people because Pamela Price won't prosecute them or that police fear Price will prosecute them is unfounded. But, Pamela Price and the progressives made themselves out to be much more reformist than they actually were. Prosecuting police officers who break the law and ending life without parole is a change from Nancy O'Malley's administration, but it is the global norm among developed nations. Otherwise, Price prosecuted non-police criminals in mostly the same form as O'Malley. Despite my criticisms of Price's office, I wonder if it would've saved her. George Gascon of Los Angeles did everything I recommended a good progressive district attorney should do, yet he was defeated to a candidate running to his right at the same margin as Price's recall. Like the national election, it's all culture war above policy specifics. People looked at the blight in the East Bay and blamed it on Price because that's whose name popped up online with crime articles. I don't have much hope that the next district attorney will successfully deal with the East Bay's crime struggles. These property crimes and dangerous drivers that are plaguing the East Bay are not committed by the vast majority of poor people, but small crime rings loosely organized on social media. Many of these rings aren't even from Oakland anymore; many drive in from Stockton or Fairfield. Whether your East Bay community is plagued by them is mostly dependent on the efficiency of your local police department. Growing up in East Oakland, everyone knew Oakland Police were an ineffective force stretched pretty thin. If you tried speeding, dumping, sideshows, organized thefts in nearby Alameda, Berkeley, Dublin or Fremont, their cops are way more likely to catch you. The proximity of many low income Oakland neighborhoods to freeways or quasi-highway roads make criminals even harder to catch. Something the more traffic-calmed, narrower roads and plate-reader armed wealthier East Bay doesn't have to deal with. I don't see how that changes with the next District Attorney. -- You're currently a free subscriber to The Discourse Lounge. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. Upgrade to paid --- | | | Like --- | | Comment --- | | Restack --- (C) 2024 Darrell Owens 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 Unsubscribe