So Patrick Cannon easily defeated James Mitchell for the Democratic mayoral nomination. This should not come as a surprise — Mitchell entered the race late, which certainly didn’t help matters, but faced a more fundamental problem: Mitchell served on Charlotte City Council from a district will Cannon served at large. Which is to say most Democratic primary voters had previously voted for Cannon while far fewer had previously cast a ballot for Mitchell. And that’s huge.
Does Republican nominee Edwin Peacock have a chance of beating Cannon? Yes, though Peacock’s probably a bit of a long-shot. Cannon did run 19,000 votes ahead of Peacock in the 2011 city council at-large race. That does not matter as much as the UPoR claims however. Over the last two years, city council has passed a big tax increase and looked very foolish in the Panthers stadium negotiations. (To be fair, Cannon recused himself on the Panthers stadium vote.) Peacock can run a quick credible campaign against an inept tax-and-spend city council, of which Cannon was mayor pro-tem. The questions about Cannon’s leadership abilities won’t end now that he’s defeated Mitchell, and it seems that that those concerns do translate into contributions.
So the question is whether Peacock can get the Republican vote out, and attract enough independents and fiscally conservative Democrats to carry the election. Time will tell, but this is probably the GOP’s last best chance of winning the Charlotte mayor’s race in the foreseeable future.
Update: From today’s Charlotte Observer.
For [Claire] Fallon, Tuesday’s vote was vindication – and a sort of rebuke for Foxx, now the U.S. transportation secretary.
“He had a very bad day, and I don’t think he can come back to Charlotte,” she said. “Everybody he supported got creamed, and the people he didn’t support did well. I would like to thank him for all the help I got from him.”
