UFT Elections: votes for New Action, MORE

In the election that ended last week, New Action lost to MORE in every division except retirees. I knew we would lose high schools, and win retirees. That did happen. I thought we would win functionals, and that the races in middle school and elementary school would be close. That did not happen.

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Look at those numbers. MORE would seem to have won a substantial victory. (I/T/M refers to any and all of ICE, TJC, and MORE)

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Looking at the numbers from 2010 and today, it seems that MORE flipped a chunk of votes from New Action.

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Looking at the numbers going back two elections, a different pattern seems to emerge. New Action flips votes from ICE/TJC in 2010, but they come back to MORE in 2013.

MORE’s 2013 numbers under Cavanaugh fall short of ICE’s 2007 numbers under Wainer (except retirees)

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Pushing the returns back to 2004, it now looks like the anomalous year was 2010. And 2013 is neither the worst year for New Action, nor the best for ICE/TJC/MORE. That’s actually bad news for New Action – this election was, in relation to the other opposition caucus, fairly normal.

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But back to 2010, what might explain the shift? It was, I believe, a more optimistic year. Mulgrew was new, and we preferred his style, and when Weingarten proposed a lousy teacher evaluation system, he said she didn’t get it. He didn’t agree to the outline of the NY State teacher evaluation law until after the election. New Action’s 2010 vote total may have been swelled by voters who wanted to support Mulgrew, but refused to do so on the Unity line.

The ICE/TJC/MORE vote seems to match up most closely between 2007 and 2013, as does the New Action vote, though slightly depressed in 2013 for both caucuses. The Retiree category is an exception, with both groups stronger among retirees in 2013 than they were in 2007.