Schiff Will Have Trouble Making Signature Threshold for Primary
Three municipalities in Connecticut have more than 10,000 registered Republicans: Greenwich, Stamford, and Fairfield. No other town comes close to those three, so they are the trifecta of primary petition signature efforts. Peter Schiff appears to have fallen short in them.
He collected 282 in Greenwich, 436 in Stamford, and 57 in Fairfield. Those are confirmed. That’s 775 signatures from the three towns where it should be easiest to collect toward the 8,268 verified signatures Schiff needs to get on the ballot. A candidate’s efforts will usually not be uniform across the state. In Simsbury, as noted here Wednesday, Schiff collected more than 400. He’ll need a passel of Simsburys, for example, to make up for his weak effort in Fairfield.
Check DailyRuctions.com for updates.
9 comments
Fairfield is light, but (though my data is a little old) there are about 37,000 Republicans between those 3 towns, which would set his 2% target at 740. So it would appear that he’s more or less on target.
Thanks for your comment, grackle. I understand your math. The problem is the logistics. There will be many towns where, because Republicans are widely dispersed, petition collectors will not have some close to getting signatures from 2%. Because of the concentration of Republicans in the three towns I mentioned, it’s important to get a boatload of signature there to make up for the deficit in other places. That’s the conventional wisdom, which I concede is not always correct. Nevertheless, this is going to be closer for Schiff than it needed to be.
Schiff was at the memorial day parade in Fairfield collecting signatures and he had already been there at the train station one morning I don’t understand why it’s so low there.
Here’s a report from someone (not myself) who helped Schiff in his efforts.
We mostly stayed in the 5th district. We did not petition every town and we did not stay in towns that did not have high traffic areas. A town may have thousands of Republicans, but what are the chances they all visit the Post Office (a common place to petition) on the same exact day and at the same time? To my knowledge, nobody petitioned in Enfield. Contrary to what that says, that’s 60 signatures I didn’t expect. Also, most Republicans didn’t know either candidate and would sign. It really doesn’t have much to do with where Schiff supporters are. Although hopefully the petition drive created some new supporters.
I believe Woodbury is another town that was focused on.
I also didn’t hear of anyone petitioning at Stamford or Greenwich. Once again, it doesn’t have to do with where the supporters are. It has to do with available, high traffic areas in towns that were close to where the petitioners started every day.
Thanks for an interesting and informative comment, Evan. I wonder why so few signatures from Danbury, which is in the 5th. You are right that it doesn’t have to do with where the supporters are. Most registered party members will sign a primary petition when presented with one. The challenge is finding them as they go about their local travels.
Another issue is that it appears that area might just be more McMahon country…Schiff might be doing better in other areas of the state.
So, did he get enough signatures to primary?
Kevin, if what you’re talking about is density of people, I think you’re right on. Fairfield County has more Republicans per square mile than probably anywhere else — Canvassing for signatures in Kent or East Lyme is not my idea of a good time. And if you petition in front of grocery stores (or at parades, as “cooler” mentioned), you’re going to get a very high rate of unaffiliateds, non-voters, etc.
I wonder, of the 282, 436, and 57 that were counted, how many were submitted?
The numbers I mentioned from Greenwich, Stamford, and Fairfield were the verified signatures, according to the Republican registrar in each town.
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