ISSUE 7 - Previewing America's "off year" elections
Welcome to another issue of #munipoli Matters, where we discuss all about municipal elections and the often unreported arena of local government across Canada and beyond.
Tonight, two states and various cities and towns across the United States go to the polls for what is considered “off year” elections in America. Virginia and New Jersey will hold gubernatorial and legislative elections, with NJ incumbent Democratic governor Phil Murphy running for a second term while the Virginia governorship is an open race as sitting governors only get to serve one term every four years.
This doesn’t prevent a former governor from coming back after they served out their first term. Former Virginia Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe, who served from 2014 to 2018, is running to regain his old job against Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin. Virginia is becoming more of a swing state between Democrats and Republicans, so the gubernatorial race in “the Old Dominion” will be close.
Of course, #munipoli Matters focuses more on elections at the local city, county and town level, so here are some highlights of the mayoral races happening across the country. Some races have already happened earlier this year, such as Burlington, Vermont, St. Louis, Missouri and Omaha, Nebraska.
Here are highlights of some of the more high profile mayoral races in the United States taking place today, November 2.
Albuquerque, New Mexico: Mayor Tim Keller is running for his second term and will be challenged by Republican radio host Eddy Aragon and Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, a runoff election will be held for the top two vote getters on December 7.
Atlanta, Georgia: In what became a surprise open contest, incumbent Keisha Lance Bottoms, who gained a high profile during the initial 2020 coronavirus lockdowns and was even considered a vice presidential pick for Joe Biden, opted not to seek reelection after serving just one term as mayor.
There are a total of 19 registered and write-in candidates ranging from the current President of Atlanta City Council, two sitting councilmen, a former mayoral candidate as well as probably the well known name in the race: Kasim Reed, former mayor from 2010 to 2018 and Bottoms’ immediate predecessor.
If no candidate secures a majority of the votes on November 2, a contingent runoff is scheduled for November 30 between the top two vote getters.
Boston, Massachusetts: Former mayor Marty Walsh became Biden’s Labor Secretary earlier this year, and Council President Kim Janey (the first black woman to be Boston’s mayor) automatically assumed the mayoral post as per city bylaws. Janey lost the September primary to two other councillors already running, Annissa Essaibi George and Michelle Wu.
Wu, born in Chicago and whose parents emigrated from Taiwan, has been sustaining healthy leads in the polls and if elected, would become Boston’s first elected Asian American woman mayor. Likewise Essaibi George, whose mother was Polish and her father Tunisian, would fit a similar mold.
Buffalo, New York: Incumbent mayor Byron Brown, who has been in office since 2006, lost the Democratic Party primary in a shocking upset to registered nurse and progressive candidate India Walton. Because of the city’s heavy Democratic voter registration, many were saying Walton was going to be the first socialist mayor elected in a large American city since 1960.
Instead of going gently into the night, Brown is mounting an Independent bid for reelection as a write-in candidate, whereby his name would not actually be on the ballot but he is urging his supporters to write down his name instead. As you can see, “Byron Brown” is quite easy to write down.
Based on current polling, Brown might be able to pull off a write-in campaign, a rarity in American politics, dashing the hopes of progressives in this political back and forth with “the establishment” of the Democratic Party.
Cleveland, Ohio: Longtime incumbent mayor Frank Jackson, who has been on city council since 1989 and mayor since 2006, opted not to seek another term even though he was eligible to run again. A large field of candidates ran in the September primary to succeed him, including former presidential candidate and Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich, former councilman Zack Reed (who ran against Jackson in 2017) and current city councilman Basheer Jones.
Neither of those three men advanced in the primary to the general election on November 2, which now consists of Kevin Kelley, the current city council president, and Justin Bibb, a nonprofit executive. Kelley has been on council since 2005 and assumed the presidency of Cleveland city council in 2014, while Bibb’s biography is indicative of the outsider status with the insider experience; he cited his prior work with former US president Barack Obama.
Cincinnati, Ohio: Incumbent John Cranley is ineligible to run for reelection because they have term limits in the United States, and the May primary earlier this year resulted in two candidates advancing to the November 2 general election: 82 year old current councilman and former mayor David Mann, and Hamilton County Clerk Aftab Pureval, who was also previously a congressional candidate.
Both candidates are registered Democrats, but you may not be able to tell judging by some of the local rhetoric that emerged. Pureval has accused Mann of being supported by ‘Trump Republicans’, as this graphic on his website indicates, along with citation of sources:
Even though both men serve in a government position right now, the narrative in the Cincinnati mayoral election is being spun as “the new guy” versus “quiet experience” as stated in this piece from the local enquirer.
Manchester, New Hampshire: Incumbent Joyce Craig will face a rematch against her Republican challenger, former state legislator Victoria Sullivan. The last election in this city was in 2019, Craig defeated Sullivan by 56-43%.
New York City: Incumbent mayor Bill De Blasio is term limited. NYC adopted the ranked choice voting system this year for the city’s elections and current Brooklyn Borough President and former cop Eric Adams emerged victorious in the Democratic primary.
Adams bested other challengers like Shaun Donovan (a former Obama administration cabinet member), Kathryn Garcia (who was runner up to Adams in the final round of vote distribution under RCV and a former Sanitation commissioner for the city) and Andrew Yang, the former 2020 presidential candidate…who has now started his own third party in America, but that’s another story.
Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and founder of the non-profit Guardian Angels organization, is running as the Republican candidate. Sliwa easily won the Republican primary, but NYC’s voter registration is so heavily Democratic that Adams’ eventual ascendance to the mayoral chair is all but a given.
Besides the mayoral and city council elections, there are also elections for City Comptroller (who manages the city budget), the Public Advocate (who is like an Ombudsman) and the Borough Presidencies of the five component “municipalities” that make up NYC: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island.
Minneapolis, Minnesota: Mayor Jacob Frey is running for his second term, facing a slew of challengers from various backgrounds. Minneapolis also uses ranked choice voting for mayor and city council, although they’ve been doing it for several years now.
Frey faced two challenges within the last year: the COVID19 pandemic in his city, and the aftermath of the George Floyd murder by police officers. The mayor said he didn’t support fully abolishing the police, but Frey isn’t going to get much choice in the matter: there is also a ballot question for city voters on whether to disband the police department.
The mayor won his job from the previous incumbent who ran in 2013, and because of Minneapolis’ RCV system, there is a much higher chance of an incumbent not successfully getting reelected and more potential for turnover on city council as well.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Mayor Bill Peduto, first elected in 2013, was seeking a third term this year but he lost the Democratic primary to state senator Ed Gainey by 46-39%. One of the other primary contenders, Tony Moreno, is now standing as the Republican in the general election facing Gainey.
But Pittsburgh also has such a heavy Democratic voter registration that the primary was the real contest. Should he get elected, Gainey will become the first black mayor in Pittsburgh’s history.
Seattle, Washington: One term mayor Jenny Durkan, who was first elected in 2017, announced she would retire at the end of her term. The August 3 primary saw two prominent names advance to the November 2 general election: City Council President Lorena Gonzalez, and former councilman Bruce Harrell. Harrell was briefly acting mayor for five days in 2017.
St. Petersburg, Florida: Incumbent Rick Kriseman is ineligible to run for reelection due to term limits. The primary was held on August 24 and councilman Robert Blackmon (Republican) will face former county commissioner Ken Welch (Democrat) for the job of running this Florida city of 244,000.
Syracuse, New York: One term incumbent Ben Walsh is running for reelection. Walsh was elected as an Independent in 2017 over the official Democratic and Republican nominees under the Independence Party of New York. He is one of the few mayors successfully elected without major party support in the US.
Toledo, Ohio: One term incumbent Wade Kapszukiewicz is running for reelection against the 82 year old former mayor Carly Finkbeiner, who served from 1994 to 2002.
Besides the mayoral and city council elections in various US cities, a number of those cities will be using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) in how they vote, or voting on ballot measures whether to adopt such a system. You may know the system being called ‘ranked ballots’ up in Canada. The principle is to ensure a winner gets an actual majority of voter support; many elections in the US use runoff voting but that occurs later. RCV allows the ‘runoff’ to take place at the same time as the initial vote.
Aside from the aforementioned Minneapolis, neighbouring St. Paul also uses RCV and for the first time two other Minnesota cities, Bloomington and Minnetonka, will be using ranked choice voting as well.
There are a smattering of other cities across America also using RCV, but the state of Utah is outdoing everyone else: 23 of the state’s cities will be using the system, including the largest jurisdiction, Salt Lake City. For more on RCV elections taking place, click here.
Ballotpedia is also providing a more expanded list of United States municipal elections in 2021. There are local contests for city council and other offices in various other cities and towns across America.
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