Retiree Advocate – When I knew we had won
August 2023 – May 2024
We had a chance, but we were underdogs. I started saying that August 2023, and I stuck with that line until the results started coming in Friday, June 14, 2024. The Retired Teachers Chapter of the United Federation of Teachers – this election would be, at least, a little interesting.
And I meant it. I really thought we had a chance. I was one of the Retiree Advocate organizers who insisted, from Day One, that we fill all 300 slots. Why? Because we were running to win. No sense in winning, but running 200 delegates and handing the last hundred to Unity.
And, by the way, we got our 300 candidates. More than that. About 330. Someone passed away (Sheila Rashal – I didn’t know her – but she would have been a delegate). After we asked candidates to accept our platform, a few said no (three said it was too radical, one said it was not radical enough – there may have been some who didn’t answer because they didn’t like it). A few more just didn’t respond – we know that not everyone looks at emails. But we were ready, over a month in advance, with a few in reserve. And then when we submitted the names, a few were not eligible. And we were still ok.
May 2024
We have a chance, but we are still underdogs. I stuck to this. Ballots were mailed out mid-May (should have been May 10, but I think they went later. Story for another time). I worked on getting people to get other people to vote, and to mail in ballots. And I heard the stories. Our response was stronger than I expected. More Unity people were hesitant. Some had switched sides. People had agreed to run with them, reluctantly. Or had said no.
I began to look at the old numbers. I considered how the numbers would change. This was interesting. The last RTC election came as the news of the Medicare Advantage fiasco broke – and Unity had lost votes. But in the general the next year the votes had not gotten worse for them. So there was no guarantee that there was an ongoing down-trend.
Sources of change:
- Older voters leaned more towards Unity. Younger, more recent retirees were more likely not Unity.
- Unity voters who just couldn’t vote Unity this time
- Unity voters who were flipping to vote for Retiree Advocate
- New voters from Retiree Advocate outreach (it helped that some of our 300 were brand new to union politics – they had friends that no one had ever nudged to vote)
- New voters from the NYCOPSR appeals.
I did some back of the napkin math, and anyone I spoke to in May, into early June, if I gave them a guess (and usually I did not) but if I gave them a guess, I was saying 42% or 43% for Retiree Advocate. We have a chance, but we are still underdogs.
June 2024
We have a chance, but we are still underdogs. I still stuck to this. There was some interesting evidence to the contrary. Marianne Pizzitola put us on her youtube, several times, with seemingly strong response. I couldn’t tell what that meant. But I orchestrated a phone calling campaign, and asked some of the callers about the responses they got. Pretty positive. I called a few of my contacts – candidates who were out campaigning – asking their friends and former colleagues to vote, and then calling again to make sure they’d mailed in their ballot. I asked them about their experiences. All of them reported getting some Unity votes. And none of them reported getting any pushback, except from longterm Unity supporters. No one said “the devil I know,” no one said “but you are single issue,” no one said “we don’t want outside influence.” – No one.
June 13, 2024
I sat down to write my “Numbers” post. And something was off. We weren’t winning 75% or 80% of the new votes. We were much closer to 100%. But when I adjusted the numbers, our percent was going unreasonably high. My proportion of Unity people switching to us was too low. But when I pushed it where my guess took me, the percents seemed off. I was getting Retiree Advocate numbers that were too high, or so I thought. I tweaked the numbers downwards. I ignored my own evidence. I got it down to a low of 37% and a high of 56%. Even then, the average was 46%, up from my 43% guesses. But I really saw 40% as a low and 60% as a high. But how was 50/50 possible? I fudged my numbers against us. I ignored my own data.
One thing I noticed – last RTC election there were 23,000 votes. If the number went high, like to 35,000, Unity had no chance. At 30,000, RA probably won. But what I didn’t write, even at 26,000 I was seeing an RA win more than 50/50. Again, I had baked in the idea we were underdogs, and was instinctively rejecting evidence otherwise.
June 14, 8:30 AM
Ok, now I knew what I had seen with the numbers. Over 26k and we were better than 50/50. This was 27k. I reran numbers in my head. It felt like we really might be winning.
Norm was comparing the numbers to the totals from the general election in 2022. (if he was right, we weren’t doing so well). He called. I explained why I thought that was wrong. The valuable comparison was to the RTC election of 2021, and 27k votes was a very good number for us.
June 14, 10:15 AM
It’s not just 28k vs 27k, but up 5000 ballots instead of up 4000 ballots. That’s much bigger. Now I thought we were winning, and probably clearly. I wasn’t ready to make a public predication yet. Plus, doctor appointment at 11:20… wanted to get poked and prodded first. Plus some additional data would help.
June 14, 11:48 AM
That didn’t look close to me. The percents: 58%, 63%, 68%, 59%, 61%. Five random snapshots, and Unity wasn’t even close to tied in any of them. I knew what that looked like.
June 14, 12:37 PM
That clinched it. Percents were 64%, 68%, 60%, 67%, 60%, 67%, 60%. These were independent samples. Seven more, or twelve altogether. And they were tightly clustered between 58% and 68%. It was highly unlikely that the final result would be outside of that range.
At 12:36 Bennett sent that second batch of data. I was on the 4 train. I did the percents. “It’s over,” I told Bennett, “And not close.”
Ten minutes later, off the train, I ran into Rashad and Brad walking the other way. Coming from the count? Yes. We won? They are just counting.
Five minutes after that I was at 120 Broadway, looking for the counting room. I saw Norm. We won, I told him, 60%. But I wasn’t explaining the stats. Bennett’s samples, 12 independent samples, all between 58% and 68% for us, combined with the turnout, there was no way that the result was anything except a big RA victory. But even if I couldn’t explain it clearly yet, he would see.
June 14, 2PM
For the next hour I Facebooked and tweeted a few numbers, hinted strongly that this was done, and let the consistency of the samples sink in with the people in the room. They were getting it. What was true at 12:30 was still true at 2:00 – we had won. I made my prediction public at 2PM:
It was all over but the counting.
JD2718 
Fantastic! Winner takes all system, set up by Mulgrew, is going to kick him right in the pants. Don’t give Unity any proportional representation – Remember how they denied that request from us when they won.
Congrats!
Thanks! It was a big deal. It is a big deal.