Sheriff Robert Arnold faced significantly more opposition inside Murfreesboro than beyond the city’s limits on the way to his decisive win in last week’s Rutherford County election, an analysis of unofficial precinct-level voting results indicates.
County-wide, Arnold carried 52 percent of the votes compared to the 28 percent captured by his nearest opponent, independent Dale Armour, according to still-unofficial results. Democratic candidate Bill Kennedy pulled in 17 percent, and independent Jim Roy Tramel II drew 2 percent.
But a precinct-by-precinct examination of Arnold’s net votes – the number of votes he received minus the sum of the votes his opponents received – shows that his opponents collectively outpolled him in half of the precincts within Murfreesboro compared to only about a fifth of the precincts elsewhere in the county.
A bird’s-eye view of Sheriff Arnold’s net votes in the 2014 Election
Dark-shaded precincts are those in which Arnold’s net votes remained positive, while light-shaded precincts are those in which his net votes turned negative. The yellow shading indicates Murfreesboro’s city limits.
Statistically, the probability that chance alone could explain the pattern is only about 3 percent. Furthermore, Arnold averaged only about four net votes among precincts inside the city compared to nearly 63 outside the city. Chance alone could explain the difference only about 2 percent of the time.*
Here’s a comparison of Arnold’s net votes at polling locations inside (blue) and outside (gray) Murfreesboro’s city limits.
Sheriff Arnold’s net votes, by city and county voting locations
Sheriff Robert Arnold’s net votes in the Aug. 7, 2014 election, broken down by voting locations inside Murfreesboro (blue) and outside Murfreesboro (gray).
Arnold’s biggest net voting deficits appeared in the Seigel Middle School, Patterson Park and Central Magnet School precincts. All three are inside the city limits. Of the precincts yielding his three biggest net voting surpluses – Stewarts Creek Elementary, Rock Springs Elementary and Creekmont General Baptist Church, only the latter is inside the city limits.
Nothing in these findings changes the fact that Arnold garnered more votes than any of his opponents individually, an accomplishment he managed not only county-wide but also in every separate precinct except one: Precinct 17-3, “Bud’s Tire,” where 10 of 31 voters chose Arnold compared to the 14 who selected Armour, the six who marked Kennedy, and the one who went for Tramel. See the table below for the full dataset.
The findings do indicate, though, that Arnold’s opponents attracted sizable numbers of voters who, for perhaps a range of reasons, did not support Arnold’s re-election, and that those voters were more common in Murfreesboro than elsewhere in the county.
Aug. 2014 Rutherford County sheriff election results
Results are shown broken down by precinct and candidate. Clicking the top of any column will sort the data by that column.
*The percentages were compared using a chi-squared test. The averages were compared using a t-test.
By Ken Blake, editor, The Data Reporter