Well waiting for results to come in last night is a couple hours of my life that I will never get back. And I say that because absolutely nothing changed all night. Jennifer Roberts had about 36 percent of the vote early in the evening and finished with 36 percent. Dan Clodfelter was ahead of David Howard all night for second (and thus in the runoff, if he wants one) at all points during the night.
Some random thoughts:
• Michael Barnes’ brand of minimal campaigning (don’t raise much money, don’t spend much money) just doesn’t work at the mayoral level.
• If Barnes hadn’t run, Howard would almost certainly have finished ahead of Clodfelter. Barnes got 4,326 votes, and the margin between Clodfelter and Howard was only 643 votes. The more interesting question is whether in a straight Roberts/Clodfelter/Howard contest, Roberts would have gotten to 40 percent and thus avoided a runoff. It’s possible — she would only have needed to get 30 percent of Barnes’ votes to get there.
• Has anyone ever spent more to achieve less in a Charlotte election than Scott Stone, who raised well over $100,000 and still managed to get only a third of the vote in the Republican primary for mayor? Edwin Peacock was wise to hold his money for the general election.
• Smuggie is back. James (Smuggie) Mitchell finished second in the Democratic at large primary with 17,644 votes, behind Vi Lyles (19,131 votes) but well ahead of Julie Eiselt (12,976) and Claire Fallon (11,995). Fifth, and out of the money, was Billy D. Maddalon with 9,504 votes. Fallon remains the most vulnerable incumbent on city council.
• There were 30,945 votes cast in the Democratic mayoral primary and 102,064 votes on the Democratic side for city council at large. That means that a significant number of people voted in the mayoral contest but didn’t pick four candidates in the at large race. In fact, the number of such “missing” votes (21,716) exceeds even Lykes tally.
