Big Early Vote in 50th Ward

As I pointed out on CapitolFax awhile back, it's a common misperception that run-off elections have significantly lower turn-out than citywide municipal elections. In fact, in 2003 the average aldermanic run-off saw a drop in turn-out of only 3%, and one race actually saw turn-out increase.

I also predicted that the 50th Ward would be one of the races this time around where turn-out would increase, and a new report from the Daily Southtown on early voting turn-out sure makes it seem that way:

After sounding an alarm about the lack of early voters in February, Chicago election officials said they're seeing a big spike in the number of people heading to the polls before Election Day.

With only 11 aldermanic races up for election April 17, the Chicago Board of Elections recorded 5,324 early votes through Sunday, officials said.

That's 443 voters per ward, as compared with 214 per ward at this point in February's early voting. Early voting ends Thursday....

....The heated 50th Ward race between veteran Bernie Stone and challenger Naisy Dolar in the city's Rogers Park community had drawn 1,002 votes as of Sunday, 300 more than any other race. (emphasis added)

Conventional wisdom tells us that high turn-out benefits challengers, but in the Stone-Dolar race, it really depends on whether those early votes are coming from Stone's base or Dolar's base.

According to the Board of Elections, in February, Stone got 55% or more of the vote in 21 of the 45 precincts. However, he got less than 45% of the vote in 17 precincts. To underscore just how polarized the vote is in this ward, Stone broke 75% in six precincts, but there are seven precincts where he got less than 25% of the vote. Where those early votes are coming matters very much indeed. Too bad the Southtown didn't provide us with that level of analysis.

Consider this a municipal run-off open thread. Try to keep the shilling to a respectable minimum.