Just a note of caution for supporters of Mike McGinn, Joe Mallahan, OR Greg Nickels: Although the three leading mayoral contenders stacked up in that order, they’re really all within a few hundred votes of each other—meaning that this election could shake out just about any way, depending on what happens with the 60,000 or so votes still outstanding. As of 10:15 last night, frontrunner McGinn led second-place finisher Mallahan by 515 votes, and led incumbent Greg Nickels by just 970 votes. That’s a Gregoire 2004-size margin. At this point, anything could happen.
On the other hand: As I reported yesterday , most of the voters who’ve cast their ballots already are older, meaning they favor Mallahan and, to a lesser extent, Nickels. That means there are potentially a lot of younger voters who voted yesterday—and younger voters have been skewing heavily toward McGinn (and, to a lesser extent, Mallahan).
Although Nickels has spent a ton on a last-minute robocall and TV blitz, there’s little evidence that it did much good: Every poll so far has shown previously undecided voters going for either McGinn or Mallahan, not Nickels. That’s a fairly good reason to expect a Mallahan-McGinn showdown in November (as Josh predicted on Monday). In other too-close-to-call races: Seattle School Board director Mary Bass is currently just 35 votes ahead of her nearest challenger, clothing store owner Kay Smith-Blum.
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“…and younger voters have been skewing heavily toward McGinn (and, to a lesser extent, Mallahan).”
The only polling I’ve seen would indicate that Nickels will benefit from the under 50 vote and the under 35 vote. Mallahan doing the worst with younger voters.
Yes, it’s a Gregoire 2004-sized margin in terms of raw votes. But you also have to consider the much much much smaller total # of votes in a Seattle-only off-year primary vs. a statewide general election. Seattle to begin with is only about 10% of the state, so the relative margin immediately grows by ten times. So a 515-vote margin in Seattle becomes a 5150-vote margin statewide. Turnout is only supposed to be about half at best of a statewide general election, so the 5150 vote relative margin grows into a 10,000-plus vote relative margin.
As a share of the vote this is still certainly not a slam-dunk, but there’s more daylight between the candidates here than the Gregoire reference suggests.
Statistics & percentages can get confusing, but the statistical interpretations of #s and %s and polls here have been underwhelming so far. Maybe you need a MathNerd?
Right. So why do you have an “ElectionNerd” article entitled “The Final Count?”
Final count… of the night. As always, there will be many more counts in the days ahead.
Can we get some more coverage on SEA City Council races, please?????????
@3 -
I believe they meant the final count *of the night*. They probably should have said that more clearly, though.
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As McGinn himself said last night, it was a great night for the campaign, but it’s not over. I think it’s safe to say that most everyone in that room was elated for 1st to be ours to lose, but was realistic about the current state of the numbers.
Well, at least until the drinking.
Your real base among those last minute ballots isn’t really divided by age, but by the nature of indecisive procrastination. Many voters of all ages (myself included) were undecided up until the last couple days. Many races had a very diverse set of candidates, none of which really stood out to many of us (despite your best efforts to the contrary) and many of us had to think long and hard about who to go with. You may see a lot of divergent patterns among subsequent ballots.
..i guess i’m confused… yesterday you said Nickel’s was by far the leader among young voters, and he jumped 4 points in the final survey USA poll….. how are more younger voters hurting him again?
I think McGinn and Nickel’s numbers are tied to each other at this point…by your own logic.
If it ends up being Mallahan-McGinn, what the heck will Joe campaign on? The anti-Nickels crutch won’t do…
@9
He will campaign on tropes and cliche’s (not much of a switch for him really)
Make government more like the private sector!
I’m a manager at a big private company!
I’m a “leader”!
etc. etc.
Kay Smith-Blum should clean Mary Bass’s clock.
She is WAY better.
NO contest.
9. He’ll just robo-spam and e-mail spam the hell out of every possible voter until he has a majority by simple-minded name recognition.