Result-less in Seattle

The Seattle mayoral result gets closer, well 462 votes closer at any rate.

Results and run-offs

While I put my thoughts to paper, here’s the City Mayors‘ results table of what transpired last night, including those races still too close to call. Incumbents won in cities such as New York City, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, St Paul and Rochester, while second-round ballots will be necessary in Atlanta and Houston.

This is it

It is of course that clutch of key polls, the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races and the New York City mayoral race, which provides pundits with enough material on which to determine the voters’ verdicts on the federal administration of Barack Obama, even in this off-year.

The New York City race is not the only contest the state has to offer, as there are elections for county executives in Nassau and Westchester Counties, as well as a vacant congressional seat in New York’s 23rd district.

But spare a thought also for the voters of Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh, who may or may not turn out for altogether different reasons other than to cast their verdict on the president’s first year in office. And indeed the voters of Seattle, Charlotte, Atlanta, Miami and St. Petersburg. Or Cleveland, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Tulsa and St. Paul for that matter. Ballot Box is your best place to catch those, live as they come in.

City Mayors will of course be doing the usual post-contest analysis.

The first casualty of elections

It’s mendacity and veracity-bending all the way on both sides in the New York mayoral election, according to the New York Times. But is anyone really so suprised? We’ll find out tomorrow.

Final days

The Boston race, a Bill Clinton endorsement for the incumbent aside, appears to be coming down to past versus future, experience versus vision and Italian versus Irish-American. 2005’s Menino coasting back into office over Maura Hennigan it aint. Atlanta’s equally tight and unpredictable race is all about, well, race, it seems. In some rare coverage from overseas, Scotland’s Sunday Herald proclaims that “On Tuesday, barring a terrorist attack or an unthinkable scandal, Michael Bloomberg will be elected mayor of New York for a third time.”

All eyes on November 3rd

The Economist has its say about which races matter on November 3rd, concentrating on New York, Boston and to a lesser extent Seattle, also noting that Chicago’s Richard Daley will surpass his father’s length in office next year.

McGinn vs. Mallahan

Seattle faces an interesting election. The two-time incumbent didn’t make it into the finals. Pretty amazing considering that he had been a ‘not bad’ mayor from many perspectives. Arrogant, maybe. But a perfect-pitch Seattle liberal with no financial or sex scandals (his own or in his city government entirely) in his 8 years in office. Amazing and admirable, even if I disagreed with much of his policy.

(more)

Motor City Municipal Mayhem

Governing.com Ballot Box blog on Detroit’s canny ability to surprise on polling day:

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing won 74% of the vote in an all-candidate primary in August. His closest challenger, accountant and two-time losing candidate Tom Barrow (who once spent more than a year in prison due to a tax evasion conviction), took 11%. Bing and Barrow advanced to the November general election, which appeared to only be a formality, with Barrow playing the role of inconsequential gadfly.

…

If there’s one place where you shouldn’t be surprised to be surprised, it’s Detroit. Four years ago, every poll said that Freman Hendrix was going to comfortably defeat mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. One poll from late October even showed Hendrix with a 20-point lead. Kilpatrick won by 6 points.

Five days left

1) Menino versus Flaherty: Boston’s final mayoral debate
2) Obama and the Atlanta race (WSJ also)
3) Cleveland’s uninspiring mayoral race fails to ignite
4) Make that two uninspiring races
5) Regalado remains out in front in Miami

Elsewhere:

* Democrats for Giuliani redux, it’s Booker for Bloomberg
* candidates line up for New Orleans 2010, including James Carville?

Vote 2009

The US is a nation of many cities, not only New York. However, for the most part in this off-year, attention is understandably concentrated on the celeb-fuelled New York City race. What then of the other metropolises? Having already detailed Atlanta, Houston, Seattle, Miami and Minneapolis at City Mayors yesterday (where Pittsburgh’s under 35s contest leads today), the Swing State Project details races in Charlotte, Cincinnati, Buffalo, St Paul, Tacoma, Syracuse, Stamford, and Tulsa.