Quick thoughts on last night's election results

We're still crunching the numbers and will have a fuller analysis of last night's local election shocker later today. But first, some quick thoughts:

• Michael Page did well across Durham, from a high of 21% (of all votes cast) in East-Central Durham to at least 15% in every other region. Becky Heron and Ellen Reckhow came in fifth and sixth in East Central but were in the top four in every other region.
• Joe Bowser came in second only to Michael Page in East Central and the eastern Durham Co. precincts. But he also came in fourth in North Durham, and a close sixth in South Durham -- which together appear to have been critical to his victory.
• Don Moffitt, who was heavily endorsed and favored to do well, came in a strong fourth in West Central precincts heavy with PA and Indy votes. But he failed to do well in North and South Durham or in One Stop voting, appearing on less than 9% of ballots in those precincts, including only besting Bowser in South Durham by about 350 votes.
• Figuring out turnout by region depends on how you classify the One Stop Early Voting districts, which were located near downtown, in North Durham, and in East-Central Durham. By themselves, One Stop voting presented 29% of all BOCC votes cast. In this analysis, East and North Durham combined for 34% of all BOCC votes cast, compared with 24% from South Durham and just 13% in West Central Durham.
• If you count the One Stop voting districts as part of their geographic regions, East Durham netted 26% of BOCC votes cast, almost tied with West Central's 27%. South Durham accounted for 24% and North Durham 22%. This represents very strong turnouts in Committee strongholds compared to last fall's election.

In terms of provisional ballots, we have this from election director Mike Ashe: the provisionals haven't been counted yet, but we should know this morning -- the guess of the low thousands may still be on based on past history. Election staff will spend the next three days reviewing provisionals and will make their recommendations on the ballots at a 2pm public meeting of the BOE. Ashe did point out that all provisionals that qualify are always counted regardless of whether the races are close enough to demand it.

Comments

[Frank Hyman]

Couple of interesting points that occur to me:

* Voters who want to see a uniter in the White House--meaning Obama--inadvertendly also put a divider--meaning Joe Bowser--on the BOCC. I like Joe personally, but I also worked with him (if that's the right word) on a task force charged with getting a vocational school on the books. Joe almost single-handedly destroyed the task force with his hostility, rudeness and viciousness. I say "almost single-handedly" because Victoria Peterson was also there as his sidekick, engaging in similar personal attacks on Michael Page. Unless Joe has mellowed, we can look forward to him creating an environment not unlike what we saw on the school board prior to the 2006 election.

* If you're wondering where Doug Wright's votes came from, he undoubtedly got a few thousand from his networks, but most of his votes I believe came from Friends of Durham voters who did not want to vote for a black candidate--meaning Page--even tho he had the Friend's endorsement. Check the precincts that are close to 100% white demographics and you will find a significant fall off in votes received by Page, when compared to Reckhow and Heron. Normally, when a black candidate gets the Friends endorsement, only 40-60% of the voters in Friends precincts vote for that candidate. The ones that don't, then look around for a white face they can throw their vote to. And they have done that even when the white candidate is more liberal than the black one.

* Somebody was floating a fake Committee ballot with Howerton and Peterson's name added on. When Howerton found out, she told them she didn't want any part of that. In any event, I don't think there were lots of people handing those out.

* When the Committee made their endorsements of only men for BOCC, we were surprised they hadn't endorsed Peterson, as that is what we'd been hearing through the grapevine. Immediatley Howerton started getting calls from pissed off black women leaders in the community saying they wanted to jump in and help her campaign. If the votes could be sorted by gender, I bet Howerton's total is at least 2/3s women voters.

* In the interests of full disclosure, I was managing Howerton's campaign.

[Michael Bacon]

It looks like Obama gave the Committee some relevance again this year -- who knows how long that will last. I'm sure they'll get a boost in November, too, but we probably won't have that much to decide locally at this point.

I've commented before that the three-PAC system only represented a very small proportion of the Durham electorate, but that it was generally enough to make the difference. If there's a lesson in tonight's results, it's once again that there is a vast sea of non-PAC-affiliated voters in south Durham just waiting to be organized. I have no idea how you do it, but it should at the very least be a wake-up call to the PA in particular that unless they respond to changing demographics and the changing nature of Durham politics specifically and American politics in general, they're headed towards irrelevancy.

[Frank Hyman]

Does PA count as irrelevant if 4 of our five BOCC candidates won? Our candidates for other local seats were also successful.

We put out 12,000 endorsement mailers (meaning we hit almost 24,000 voters since there are usually two adults per house), organized getting signs to the polling places for our endorsed candidates the night before the election and organized numerous volunteers from our candidates' campaigns to hand out our endorsement sheet morning, noon and evening at almost every polling place. Without having to pay anyone.

BTW, look for my column on the BOCC campaign in the Durham News on Sat.

[Ray Gronberg]

Saying you got 4 of 5 would seem to be whistling past the graveyard, Frank, given that Moffitt was likely the PA's top choice this year and that his loss follows David Harris' flame-out last year.

[anon]

Are you sure they "inadvertently" put a divider - Joe Bowser- on the BOCC? Like it was some kind of innocent mistake? Many of us get fooled the first time around when we vote for elected officials. But if we vote for them again after we know who they are and what they stand for, then that makes us the fools. Joe Bowser was not inadvertently elected last night. People have a choice, and they chose a well-known moron to represent them and bring more disgrace to our community. When even the venom-spewing racist Victoria Peterson does better than Don Moffit, an intelligent, well-spoken and progressive businessman, then we know we have a serious problem here in Durham. It is utterly depressing.

[Coop]

David Harris did not "flame out", nor did the PA have a thing to do with his loss (other than the idiots in the PA who voted for Farad Ali out of the fear, gasp, that a Republican might squeak onto that third City Council spot). Farad Ali spent $40,000 on his campaign -- give me a dead dog and I could get them elected to the City Council for $40,000.

Hell, give me Ray Gronberg and I could get *him* elected to City Council for $40,0000.

Don Moffit lost because he was the wrong color in a year in which black turn-out was, well, magnificent. Which is a shame because Moffit would have been a fantastic County Commissioner. That's democracy, and we're all committed to it, but Durham is going to be a lesser town for his loss.

[Ray Gronberg]

Ali didn't use his own money, which means that Harris had the same opportunity to raise $40K. He just wasn't able to.

[Coop]

Correction: he didn't want to try to raise that kind of money. David is not an "ask for money" kind of guy. He's more of a "what can I do for you?" kind of guy. Too bad those kinds of candidates don't do well on the campaign trail -- they make great public servants.

And no one on this planet should have to spend that much money to compete in a City Council race.... not even a dead dog seeking office.

The town of Chapel Hill is kicking off a public campaign financing trial for local races this year -- I'll be interested to see how that turns out.

[Ray Gronberg]

Depends on what you mean by "work." In past elections in Chapel Hill voters have usually seen to it that at least one incumbent is replaced per cycle. If in future elections incumbents hold on more readily, some would consider that a feature, not a bug.

[Michael Bacon]

Coop: I seriously challenge your assertion that money trumps everything. Stith outspent Bell 4:1 or more (can't remember) and lost. Moffitt had far and away the most money this time around, and see where it got him.