Describe your local elections this fall

[memphis]

My city of 650,000 citizens will vote for Mayor, City Council, and City Court Clerk on October 4. This is the first time since 1991 that the race for Mayor may be close.  Nine of Thirteen Council districts will send new members to the council.   The elections are non-partisan - the Republican Party has endorsed candidates and sent out a sample ballot, the Democrats have chosen not to. (though a splinter goup has, see below)

Mayoral candidates
His Royal Excellency, The Honourable Willie Herenton (Black D)  The incumbent, our royal emperor.  He will get a strong majority of the black vote, his number in the white community stand around 0%.  Oddly enough, he is a nominal Democrat at best, endorsed Lamar Alexander in '02, and was rumored to support President Bush in '04.  He is circulting a ballot from the "Memphis Democratic Club", a racist black splinter group, that has photos of all of the blacks that they endorse - and the only two whites on their ballot (white Dems who don't have black opponents) aren't pictured.

Councilwoman Carol Chumney (White D) The insurgent, a white female City Council woman.  Totally unqualified, but beloved by white people of all ideological backgrounds because of her pale skin color.  Older white Republicans think she is a Republican because she is white and because she has made a career of complaining about absolutely everything that Mayor Herenton does - though she was a long-time liberal Democrat state legislator.  Because of her dominance of the white vote, she will come closest to winning the election but will hit a "glass ceiling" as white voters will only be about 40% of the electorate.

Herman Morris, former MLGW President (Normal d)An African-American democrat who can unite our community.  The only candidate running for Mayor who is actually qualified for the job.  He's successfully run organizations with huge staffs and budgets.  Former President of Memphis Light, Gas and Water.  Supported by Establishment Republicans because he's the best leader for the future of our city, and many in the Gay community because of his multi-colored campaign logo  He is at a close third place in the polls, but is the only candidate to have gained serious support in the past few weeks.  Endorsed by The Commercial Appeal.

fmr. County Commissioner John Willingham Endorsed by the Republican Party, against the wishes of Party leadership.  May get 2-5% of the vote.  The vast majority of Republicans (about 28-30% of the city) are splitting their votes between Morris and Chumney and are mad at Willingham for further dividing the anti-Herenton vote.

City Council

There are numerous serious contests for City Council.  Currently, there are four white Republicans, two white Democrats, and seven black Democrats on the Council.  Several white Dems, emboldened by the election of Steve Cohen to Congress and Carol Chumney's success in the Mayor's race, are running with fervor.  (White Dems are already over-represented in elected offices proportionate to their numbers of voters)   One black Republican has a shot of making a runoff in one of the council districts.

Memphis is divided up into seven single-member districts, and then two super-districts that each encompass half of the city.  Super-District 8 is the western part of the city and is virtually all black, District 9 is predominantly white.  Several of the races pit multiple Republicans against multiple Democrats and most of them are up-in-the-air as to who will prevail.

Pretty good analysis. I don't think that Chumney is unqualified. She's served in Nashville and on the city council. I like that she's feisty, but wish she had withdrawn and endorsed Morris, which would give him a better chance. Willingham is a total joke, but may very well have a Ralph Nader style spoiler effect. I voted for Morris, but I'm afraid Willie will get a fifth term <vomit> Granted, he isn't all bad. He did land us an NBA team, two Fortune 500 companies have recently relocated here, and downtown's having a really great revival. Nonetheless, he promotes a spirit of divisiveness that Memphis can do without, seems content with corruption, is one of the few politicians more arrogant than George Bush, and has gone out of his way to alienate many middle to upper income residents (black and white) who now happily live outside the city limits. It is outrageous that Herenton has called Herman Morris a "boy," told an all black crowd that the election is "about race and power" and has refused to debate his opponents. Can you imagine a white candidate doing any of these things? I'm also uncomfortable with the speeches at churches that all the candidates are making. We really need to consolidate the city and county government, which would guarantee a sane, moderate mayor, who could appeal to whites and blacks. It also really pisses me off that Memphis has been forbidden by court order from having runoff elections for Mayor on the grounds that it's bad for blacks, who are now more than 60 percent of the population. What a crock!

[CARLHAYDEN]

In the city of Tucson, the Mayor (Republican) has no major party opponent, as is the case with one of the three Council seats up this year.

Another Council seat is a shoo-in for the incumbent, with the third a low key race between non incumbent candidates (Democrat and Republican).

The real hot issue is the proposed repeal of the garbage collection fee, pushed by John Kromko (former State Representative and former Democrat party county Chair).  John (a friend of mine) helped get rid of the tax on food a quarter of a century ago.

The fee not only is very regressive (the rich pay the same fee as the poor), but the money is actually going to subsidize developers by repaving poor quality roads they installed.

The developers, auto dealers, construction companies, etc. are spending big money to try to defeat the measure.

Polls indicate that the public is irked by the fraud.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

We have the General Assembly election next month in Virginia Beach. Democrats are, for once, actually contesting some of the Republican-held seats: in District 21, incumbent John Welch is being challenged by Democrat Bobby Mathieson, in District 82, the most competitive race in the city this fall, Republican Chris Stolle and Democrat Joe Bouchard are running for an open Republican-held seat, and in District 83, incumbent Bob Purkey is being challenged by Democrat Bob MacIver (who has absolutely no shot at winning, but I'll be voting for him anyway). our other three Delegates (Terrie Suit R-82, Sal Iaquinto R-84, and Bob Tata R-85) are running unopposed, as are our State Senators (Frank Wagner R-7 and Ken Stolle R-8). some other districts have precincts in Virginia Beach, but these guys represent the majority of the city.

[Bacon King]

Winder's mayoral election is in november.

Buddy Outz, mayor since the Stone Age, is finally stepping down. Running to replace him are Roger Wehunt (a county commisioner), Chip Thompson (husband of my old AP US History teacher), and Don Graden (local businessman and owner of half of downtown).

I haven't heard much about the race, but Graden seems to have the least yard signs.

[StateBoiler]

For background see original post. City of Rocky Mount elections results was that Mr. Combs won. Roughly same percentage as the outgoing mayor won in 2003 (55-45). (Nash and Edgecombe signifies the county breakdown, the city straddles the county line.)

David Combs-white Democrat   5790   54.19%
Lamont Wiggins-black Democrat   4894   45.81%
Mayor   10684   

Combs   5456   69.18%
Wiggins   2431   30.82%
Nash Total   7887   

Wiggins   2463   88.06%
Combs   334   11.94%
Edgecombe Total   2797   

The most important result was in Ward 4, where (appointed) incumbent Lois Watkins lost by 10 votes to former councilman Dan Looney. Because no one took 50%, it will go to runoff.

Tom Looney-white Republican   576   46.83%
Lois Watkins-black Democrat   566   46.02%
William Earl Hill-black Democrat   88   7.15%
Ward 4 Total   1230   

[Kevinstat]

I don’t know why I waited so long to post on this thread (I actually do know why – I’m lazy), but I actually will be voting in a non-referendum election this November (if not sooner, perhaps this Tuesday which is the one day of the week my town office is open past 4 p.m.).  There are five special elections for state Representative in Maine, one in my district, House District 83, where the Republican incumbent elected last November and the Democrat elected to replace her passed away less than five months apart.  There were contests in both party caucuses (Maine only has special election primaries for Governor and both houses of the U.S. Congress, where the last special election was for Governor in 1960) for placement on the ballot in the first special election in June, but both nominees were unopposed this time (I wonder why).  Part of the reason may be that the Democrat’s widow, apparently after being urged to do so by several people in the district, decided to run for the seat.

Only four Republicans showed up at the caucus to choose their nominee, compared to about 50 for the Democrats.  Republican cheerleaders at a conservative web site I frequent attributed that to the fact that the Republican caucus was outside the district at the Augusta Civic Center (I wish someone could have taken a photo of the four Republicans – the nominee was one of the four – from high in the bleachers – it’s a big enough place for High School Basketball tournaments to be held there) and the fact that a former Democratic representative (who was initially elected as a Republican and left the party after a turbulent first year in 2003 when he was the only Republican to vote for an anti-war resolution which almost passed; he had dissented from his party on other issues as well), who had sought the Democratic nod for the first special election, was rumored to be interested and that a lot of Democrats showed up to make sure their favored candidate won.  The Republican has had a lot of signs up and has had a truck with a big sign of his on a presumably unused extension of a driveway from Old Winthrop St. to Winthrop St. (U.S. Route 202, the most heavily travelled road in Manchester I’m sure) on most weekday afternoon, plus I’ve received a flyer of his while the Democrats just called us (my parents are registered Democrats and we pledged all three of our votes to the Democrat, so they probably felt no need to send us literature), but I think the Democratic widow will win with at least 60 percent of the vote).

Three of the other four state House seats up for election in Maine were held by a Republican (one resignation due to job pressure, one death, and one resignation after much pressure as the guy was living in Massachusetts doing ministry work and even had his children enrolled in school there), and one was held by a Democrat (who resigned allegedly due to work constraints but it was later revealed he had falsely reported almost $3,000 in campaign expenditures to keep the public money due to what he described after getting caught and returning the money as a “modest financial” situation).  The Democrat represented a seemingly safe Democratic seat in downtown Lewiston and the Democrats have allegedly nominated a conservative (the now scandal-tarred ex-Rep. was very liberal) so it’s unlikely the Republicans will win there even with the scandal to win although their nominee is campaigning hard and seemingly smart for that district, saying he will not cut any welfare benefits but focusing on abuse.  In two of the three “Republican” seats with special elections, I’ve heard on the conservative web site I referred to earlier that the Republicans are really well organized (in one of them) or that the Republican is running hard (in the other), but in the other won the Democrats are purportedly winning the sign war 5 to 1 (and perhaps more than that on private property).  Republicans haven’t won a special election for the Maine Legislature since the 1994 elections at least (and two of them were theirs, although one of them was a senate seat largely in Portland which arguably shouldn’t have gone Republican in the first place).  Two of the three “Republican” special election seats were held by Democrats as recently as 2002 (before the 2002 election) and the third was substantially redrawn in 2003 but most of the towns had been represented by a Democrat sometime since 1998, but I think Republicans won the overall state house vote in that district as it is now configured at least since 1994.  That’s the one which had been held by the absentee Representative (people had complained about his non-responsiveness – couldn’t they see it’s difficult to respond when you’re living in another state?), but House Republican leadership had put pressure on the Representative to resign (at least if his current residency status wasn’t going to change immediately) and was applauded in the papers for doing so.  That’s one of the districts where the local GOP apparently has their act together so they’ll probably hold that seat.  My current prediction is the Democrats pick up the seat where the Republican activist was nervous with the other seats being retained by the party which last held them.

Augusta, right next door to Manchester (which has its municipal elections in June), has a contest for an at-large council position, but I don’t know much about it and I’ve posted too much already.  I’ll let you know how the five specials turn out.  There’s a term limits extension referendum in Maine which will go down in flames unfortunately.

[Kevinstat]

Bump (I was kind of hoping to draw a comment or two, but perhaps my long post turned people off or perhaps people don't care enough about some minor elections in Maine to comment.  If so I understand.  I don't generally comment on the plethora of posts on NY, NJ and particularly PA elections, although Memphis, TN has perhaps replaced suburban Philly as the Atlas hub in the past year or so.)

[Smash255]

My predictions for the local elections here are as follows

Nassau county Leg-  Now Dems have 10-9 majority, will be 11-8 after election day.  18 of the 19 Incumbents are running for re-election (one of which was elected in a special election earlier this year to replace Craig Johnson who won a Special Election for the state Senate.  The only one who isn't is Lizanne Altman a Democrat from Great Neck in the 10th LD.  Judi Bosworth a Democrat will easily win the open seat in the heavily Democratic and very liberal district.

One of the GOP's top targets is my district the 14th LD, a seat currently held by Dave Mejias (Peter King's opponent last year for Congress).  The district has a 3-2 GOP voter registration advantage and the GOP will try to use that to their advantage and have been heavily targeting Mejias, especially in regards to their assessment freeze plan (or well gimmick).  Won't be enough to unseat Mejias who wins 53.3- 46.7


One of the Dems top targets is Republican John cotti in the 3rd LD.(Elmont, franklin Square)   Running against him is his 2005 opponent Ali Mirza, who will narrowly defat cotti 51.4-48.6

Town of Oyster Bay

Incumbent Republican John venditto easily defeats Joe Terino 63-37.  The GOP which holds all 3 seats on the TOB council as well as Town Clerk and Receiver of Taxes, keep hold of their dominance in the TOB and win all of the seats, though the 3rd seat on the council will be clsoe.

Towns of Hempstead & North Hempstead.   Much like Vednitto, the two Incumbents Republican Kate Murray in Hempstead and John Kaiman in North Hempstead are assured victory & easily.   Murray wins 64-36, kaiman wins 62-38

[Mr.Phips]

My small upstate New York town is a small town council and the only seat contested by Democrats is one town council seat left open by a Republican.  My guess is the Republican holds it. 

In the town just south of me, Saratoga Springs, there are a few contested races.  In 2005, Democrats won every seat on the city council except for Finance Commissioner which was held by a Dem leaning independent.   The most competitive in 2007 are for City Finance commissioner and Public Works Commissioner. 

The Finance Commissioner which is open and was held by the independent will probably be won by Republican Ken Ivins over Democrat Janet Weich by a 54%-46% margin. 

The Public Works race is a pure tossup at this point.  Incumbent Democrat Tom McTygue has held the position since Jimmy Carter was still President(1977) and is in the fight of his life against former Republican county supervisor Skip Scirrocco.  McTygue is disliked by many Democrats, but is actually supported by many Republicans because of his relatively conservative views and clashes with the Democratic mayor.  I was leaning ever so slightly to the incumbent Democrat until about a week ago, but now think the Republican will pull off a surprisingly narrow 53%-47% upset.  I could be wrong though. 

The Mayor's race is also marginally competitive, but the incumbent Democrat is still favored even though the Republican challenger has clearly gained in the last couple weeks. 

[Frodo]

Arlington County has some county board and school board races, and though campaigns can get rather lively, the outcome is almost never in doubt in a county almost completely by Democrats.

I am still trying to decide whether I should even bother voting this year since I know with a certainty who will win. 

I also forgot to mention (incredibly) that there are also some state legislators who are running for re-election, both of whom are Democrats, and both of whom are assured re-election with either token opposition (from the Independent Greens), or with no opposition whatsoever: Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple of the 31st district, and Del. Albert Eisenberg of the 47th.  I plan on voting for both of them anyway, even though I know it will make no difference whatsoever -I just want to have Democratic majorities in the General Assembly, so my vote will be by and large symbolic, as with my decision to vote for one Republican and one Green to fill two open seats on the Arlington County Board, just to shake things up in this otherwise monolithically Democratic county. 

[True Democrat]

Looks as though my race for commissioner will be pretty close, as I pretty much expected:

          COMMISSIONER MT LEBANON WARD 1
          (VOTE FOR NOT MORE THAN )  1
           BONNIE W VANKIRK (DEM) .  .  .  .  .  .       318   50.16
           D RAJA (REP)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       316   49.84
           WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .         0

[MSUfan]

I dont fricken believe it.

The felon, flint mayor don williamson is winning...
Dayne Walling .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,050   47.26
Don Williamson.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,728   52.55

He's been mayor for 4 years and has been breaking almost every rule in the book. He's basically a dictator and broke the law several times while in office.

Walling has never held office b4 but has to be better than this scum

[True Democrat]

Looks as though my race for commissioner will be pretty close, as I pretty much expected:

          COMMISSIONER MT LEBANON WARD 1
          (VOTE FOR NOT MORE THAN )  1
           BONNIE W VANKIRK (DEM) .  .  .  .  .  .       318   50.16
           D RAJA (REP)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       316   49.84
           WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .         0

Looks like Raja might win it:

          COMMISSIONER MT LEBANON WARD 1
          (VOTE FOR NOT MORE THAN )  1
           BONNIE W VANKIRK (DEM) .  .  .  .  .  .       793   45.16
           D RAJA (REP)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       962   54.78
           WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .         1     .06

[StateBoiler]

The most important result was in Ward 4, where (appointed) incumbent Lois Watkins lost by 10 votes to former councilman Dan Looney. Because no one took 50%, it will go to runoff.

Tom Looney-white Republican   576   46.83%
Lois Watkins-black Democrat   566   46.02%
William Earl Hill-black Democrat   88   7.15%
Ward 4 Total   1230   

Ms. Watkins won the runoff over Mr. Looney by more than 300 votes.

[Kevinstat]

In Maine, the Democrats won the three seats I expected them to win, the Republicans won one of the others and are leading in the last one but with the Democrat's hometown yet to come in.  The term limits extension was defeated as expected.  It's down 66.95% to 33.05% with 83% of precincts reporting, according to the Bangor Daily News.  An Indian "racino" (non horse-race related gambling like slot machines at horse races) citizen initiative appears to have been narrowly defeated, which will likely lead to cries of racism as a similar but non-Indian racino citizen initiative was passed by the voters in 2003.  A larger Indian casino initiative was voted down handily that same year after initially leading in the polls.

[So the Heroes Fall]

I actually totally forgot there was an election today and didn't vote. However I passed through the McElroy dorms today where a precinct usually is, and there was no voting up. Perhaps there was limited precincts for such a low turnout election? Apparently there was some school board seats up too although they're probably unopposed anyway. Oh well.

[Smash255]

Results from Long Island

All 3 Nassau Supervisors won re-electio districtn as did Glen Cove mayor Ralph Suozzi (Tom Suozzi's cousin)

Legislature looks like it remains the same, the only Incumbent not running Lisanne Altman (D-Great Neck) has gone to Judy Bosworth D-Great Neck.  17 of the other 18 Incumbents have won and their elections have been called.  The remaining one my district LD 14 has not been called.  However the Incumbent Democrat Dave Mejias leads 6182 to 5960 (50.91-49.09) according to the Nassau County BOE with all 57 Ed's in though their are about 350 Absentee ballots.  The GOP has an approx 6,000 voter registration advantage in the district (double digit % wise the largest they have in any dem held seat) and according to Nassau Dem Chairman Jay Jacobs the state & county GOP dumped $1 million into the race

[KEmperor]

Results from Long Island

News from Suffolk:

Suffolk County Dems celebrated Tuesday as their party remained in the majority in the Legislature.

The Democrats were able to maintain their balance of power by picking up another seat in the 4th Legislative District. Another victory for the Democrats included the Islip Town supervisor position. Democrat Phil Nolan defeated Clara Datre with 69 percent of the vote. It's the first time since 1931 that the Democrats have a 4-1 majority in Islip Town.

However, Republicans were celebrating their victory in Brookhaven where they took over the town board. The GOP chairman said although his party didn't win the majority, Brookhaven is Republican again. Despite gaining the town board, the Democrats won the supervisor seat with a victory by incumbent Brian Foley.

[Smash255]

Results from Long Island

News from Suffolk:

Suffolk County Dems celebrated Tuesday as their party remained in the majority in the Legislature.

The Democrats were able to maintain their balance of power by picking up another seat in the 4th Legislative District. Another victory for the Democrats included the Islip Town supervisor position. Democrat Phil Nolan defeated Clara Datre with 69 percent of the vote. It's the first time since 1931 that the Democrats have a 4-1 majority in Islip Town.

However, Republicans were celebrating their victory in Brookhaven where they took over the town board. The GOP chairman said although his party didn't win the majority, Brookhaven is Republican again. Despite gaining the town board, the Democrats won the supervisor seat with a victory by incumbent Brian Foley.

the 4th LD was a good pickup for the Dems & a bit of a surprise.  While I don't think its quite as Republican as the 14th in Nassau (my district) it i a very GOP district registration wise

[KEmperor]

Amusingly, the one race where I voted for the Democrat over the Republican, the Republican won.

2 out of 3 propositions went the way I wanted them to though.

[Smash255]

Amusingly, the one race where I voted for the Democrat over the Republican, the Republican won.

2 out of 3 propositions went the way I wanted them to though.

Receiver of taxes??

What prop didn't go the way you wanted?  the 1/4 cent sales tax extension passing?

[KEmperor]

Amusingly, the one race where I voted for the Democrat over the Republican, the Republican won.

2 out of 3 propositions went the way I wanted them to though.

Receiver of taxes??

What prop didn't go the way you wanted?  the 1/4 cent sales tax extension passing?

That's the proposition.  And no, actually it was the 6th county LD.  Although the receiver of taxes race surprised me considering Foley won.

[Smash255]

Amusingly, the one race where I voted for the Democrat over the Republican, the Republican won.

2 out of 3 propositions went the way I wanted them to though.

Receiver of taxes??

What prop didn't go the way you wanted?  the 1/4 cent sales tax extension passing?

That's the proposition.  And no, actually it was the 6th county LD.  Although the receiver of taxes race surprised me considering Foley won.

At first I was thinking that then I read your initial post where you said you planned to vote for Losquardo.   How is the makeup of the district?  he won by a solid enough margin, but it did seem rather close for the leader of the Suffolk GOP in the Legilature??

As far a the Receiver of Taxes, probably had quite a bit to do with those voting straigh 3rd party ticket as Marcoccia was also on the Independence, Conservative and Working Family Lines while Bissonette only had the Dem line.   Bissonnette actually had a higher % on the Dem line than Foley did, but those who voted Foley on the WF & Independence lines likely voted for Marccocia on the WF & Ind lines as well

[Bacon King]

Winder's mayoral election is in november.

Buddy Outz, mayor since the Stone Age, is finally stepping down. Running to replace him are Roger Wehunt (a county commisioner), Chip Thompson (husband of my old AP US History teacher), and Don Graden (local businessman and owner of half of downtown).

I haven't heard much about the race, but Graden seems to have the least yard signs.

Results: Chip Thompson with 70%.

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/110707/news_20071107070.shtml

[JohnnyLongtorso]

We have the General Assembly election next month in Virginia Beach. Democrats are, for once, actually contesting some of the Republican-held seats: in District 21, incumbent John Welch is being challenged by Democrat Bobby Mathieson, in District 82, the most competitive race in the city this fall, Republican Chris Stolle and Democrat Joe Bouchard are running for an open Republican-held seat, and in District 83, incumbent Bob Purkey is being challenged by Democrat Bob MacIver (who has absolutely no shot at winning, but I'll be voting for him anyway). our other three Delegates (Terrie Suit R-82, Sal Iaquinto R-84, and Bob Tata R-85) are running unopposed, as are our State Senators (Frank Wagner R-7 and Ken Stolle R-8). some other districts have precincts in Virginia Beach, but these guys represent the majority of the city.

Shockingly, both Mathieson and Bouchard ended up winning. Two Democrats representing Virginia Beach -- it's amazing!