Breaking for the Challenger

not Edmonton's Stephen Mandel, but one from Illinois

Stephen Mandel is Mayor of Edmonton. And I am pleased. How weird to be on the winning side in an election. This is the first time in nine (!!) years of voting that I've ever placed a vote for a winning candidate (Students' Union elections aside)

But what happened?

Mandel has consistently been in third place among decided voters throughout the campaign. How did he slip into the winning spot?

Here's the poll results Mandel himself commissioned a week before the election:

Noce - 24%
Mandel - 17%
Smith - 19%
Undecided - 29%

But of course the large number of undecided voters, the largest of any group in the survey, could swing the election for any of the candidates.

The final tally:
(percentage in brackets = change from initial poll)

Noce - 25% (+1%)
Mandel - 41% (+24%)
Smith - 33% (+14%)

The Mystery Pollster has highlighted what is called the "breaking for the challenger" effect, which suggests that because the incumbent is well known, very few voters are actual undecided about the challengers record. They have had a minimum of three (and in Smith's case, nine) years to get to know the candidate.
Which means that undecided voters tend to swing heavily towards the challengers on voting day.

The Incumbent Rule:

... voters find themselves conflicted -- dissatisfied with the incumbent yet also wary of the challenger -- and may carry that uncertainty through the final days of the campaign and sometimes right into the voting booth. Among the perpetually conflicted, the attitudes about the incumbent are usually more predictive of these conflicted voters' final decision than their lingering doubts about the challenger. Thus, in the campaign's last hours, we tend to see "undecided" voters "break" for the challenger.

If, of course, they bother to vote at all.

As for Noce's failure to pickup any of the undecided vote? It must be because he's a jerk.

From The Edmonton Journal:

Smith seemed pleased he was defeated by Mandel rather than Noce. "I think Mandel will make absolutely the best mayor. If I had to lose, then I'm glad it was Stephen Mandel."

Here's to City Council being (I hope) less retarded!