In politics, incumbency is an advantage but it’s not an insurmountable one, which is why I was not surprised at the mixed results of the 2024 elections between Malo Brown and incumbent State Senator Adam Gomez, and between Johnny McKnight and incumbent State Representative Bud Williams. Brown fared miserably and Bud Williams just barely survived.
What surprised me, after a deep dive into the precinct-by-precinct numbers, was the stunning messages the numbers reflected—and, though stunning for both elections, not for the same reasons. (First, I want to warn you that I am not a mathematician so my numbers, though reasonably accurate, may not be precise.)
To put things bluntly, Adam Gomez crushed Malo Brown by a 2,981-vote-margin in Springfield alone (5,704 to 2,723). Furthermore, Gomez beat Brown in every ward in Springfield including in Brown’s very own home Ward 4. And, that is the smallest part of the story.
Brown lost three of the eight wards in Springfield to Gomez by more than 500 votes and another four by more than 200. The only ward in which Brown came close was Ward 7, which he still lost by 14 votes. Notably, the Ward 7 Senatorial District includes only four precincts. Brown won the largest (7A) by only 49 votes, lost the next largest (7H) by 59 votes and lost the other two (7A-1 and 7B-1) by 4 votes (the total combined vote for both was only 6).
But, the really big story is their comparative performances in their respective home wards, Gomez in Ward 1 and Brown in Ward 4. Gomez destroyed Brown in Ward 1 and he decimated and all-but destroyed Brown in his own Ward 4.
Gomez received 837 Ward 1 votes to Brown’s 195, which means that 21% (642) of Adam’s city-wide winning margin of 2,981 came from his own home ward.
And in Ward 4 (Malo Brown’s own home Ward!), Gomez beat Brown by a stunning 749 to 471 votes for a margin of victory of 278 votes, which added another 10% to Adam’s margin of victory, which means that even before the two competed outside of their two home wards, Adam Gomez had already gained 31% of his city-wide winning margin of 2,981 votes.
And then Ward 2 numbers showed up!
As you may know, Ward 2 is bounded by Ward 1 below it and Ward 4 above it. Ward 2 had been a strictly Irish stronghold for many years before Black voters began to move in from above and later Puerto Rican voters from below. I suspect that Puerto Ricans are now the majority of the population (or close to becoming so) while the Black and Irish populations are probably competing for second and third place.
Gomez got 916 votes in Ward 2 while Brown eked out only 292 votes. Gomez’s 624 margin of victory in Ward 2 added another 21% to his total margin of victory of 2,981. If you are counting along with me, then you understand that with five more wards still to be counted, Gomez is already beating Malo Brown (a one ward wonder!) in Springfield by 52% of his total margin of victory.
Clearly, the Ward 2 Irish vote is still strong enough to support some prominent White office holders from the district (e.g. Richie Neal), but it has never been a strong source of votes for Black candidates although many have fared much better than Malo Brown. And, the way in which Gomez crushed Brown by a whopping 624 votes (almost as much as in Ward 1), he might have ushered in the beginning of a permanent Ward 2 Puerto Rican voter dominance.
Anybody who understands political numbers knows that if Brown had any hope of defeating incumbent Gomez, he, at least, needed to stay relatively close in Gomez’s home Ward 1. And as even any novice political pundit could easily predict, Brown couldn’t possibly hope to be a serious challenger without accumulating overwhelming support in his own home Ward 4.
And to be losing by a combined margin of 30% with only two of eight wards counted, one of which was his own home ward (the only political arena in which he had ever competed), and with six more wards to come, Malo Brown probably should have been calling Houston about his “problem” (lost in space?) because it was serious enough to almost be insurmountable, which was made obvious by the subsequent remaining vote count.
This is especially true when one considers the additional 21% margin of loss in Ward 2 that increased Brown’s total loss margin to 52% with just 3 wards counted. One might as well have advised poor Brown to save a bit of face and concede the race long before the final results were published (or maybe simply to do some rudimentary polling the next time before he ventures to challenge an incumbent).
Furthermore, adding insult to Brown’s injury, you might recall that Wards 4A and 4B are both located inside Rebecca Johnson School on Catharine Street where Malo Brown cheated so blatantly in most of his elections that the Springfield police had to repeatedly be called in to discipline him.
Irony of Ironies! Even as Brown continued cheating, Gomez beat him in both 4A and 4B while beating him in every other precinct in Ward 4 except 4F, which might be Brown’s home precinct, although no one I’ve ever spoken to seems to know for sure where he actually lives.
It’s hardly worth mentioning that 4F was the smallest voting precinct in Ward 4 (53 total votes). And Brown only beat Gomez by a tepid 5 votes, which seems grossly insignificant in the embarrassing scheme of things.
Needless to say, the election was not just a victory for Adam Gomez, it was also a classic beatdown for Malo Brown. I seriously doubt that he will be foolish enough to challenge Gomez again. One small part of Gomez’s growing legacy will always be that he demonstrated that Malo Brown, whose arrogance has been legendary, is vulnerable and can be beaten. And, from what I’m hearing, Brown will soon be tested in his run for re-election to the Ward 4 Springfield City Council seat.
Let’s hope so.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m looking for someone who will fight and represent us with a level of dignity that is so lacking in our current Black male city council leadership. There are many more qualified potential candidates out there – both male and female – but most, with the exception of the hard-working Black female incumbents, are reluctant to engage in the rough and tumble of politics.
We should all encourage others to reconsider because, admit it out loud or not, we all know that the political bar in Springfield’s Black community has been set too low for too long.
(Don’t miss my May analysis of the 2024 Bud Williams/Johnny McKnight election.) ■