May 18, 2004
(Updated) The Post-Primary Landscape
What It Looks Like At This Point
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
At the bottom of the hour, thirty minutes after the polls closed, here's what seems to be happening.
There will be a November ruoff between Jim Francesconi and Tom Potter, and at this point it looks like the distant third will be Phil Busse (not James Posey as we had been predicting to people despite our own endorsement of Busse).
It looks like Nick Fish will win the Commissioner No. 1 seat on the City Council, while Randy Leonard has clearly won his Commissioner No. 4 seat. Voters appear to have approved the so-called "housekeeping" Measure 26-53, which they will one day regret.
On the County side, it looks like voters have rejected the ignorant and pandering appeals of The Oregonian, and will be returning both Maria Rojo de Steffey and Lisa Naito to their seats on the County Commission (Rojo de Steffey pretty handily defeating ger opponents), in addition to also returning Lonne Roberts to his seat.
And inevitably, Michael Schrunk -- the man who withheld evidence from the jury of inquest -- is returned to his position as District Attorney in a landslide.
Update
It occurs to us that we might have jumped the gun on the Naito race, which might actually be going into a runoff.
Update
Just after 9:30 now, and perhaps we also jumped the gun on the Fish/Adams race. We've see Fish jump over the 50% barrier now and then, but right now with almost 3/4 of the votes tallied, he's sitting at 47% to Adams' 37%. Might be a runoff here as well.
Update
FYI, a friend stopped by and informed us that at the Potter party this evening, the candidate announced he was raising his contribution limit to $100/person, and also reached out to supporters of Phil Busse and Brad Taylor (the latter was reportedly present), which is fairly classy given that he was pretty much guaranteed to get Busse and Taylor supporters in a race against Francesconi. Speaking of Francesconi, Potter challenged him to match his own new $100/person contribution limit.
Update
Click here to see KPTV forget to put the decimal point in the right place and thereby suddenly publish results which show Mark Lakeman beating Randy Leonard. Oops.
Comments (16)
Keith on 18 May 2004
"[I]t looks like voters have rejected the ignorant and pandering appeals of The Oregonian, and will be returning both Maria Rojo de Steffey and Lisa Naito to their seats on the County Commission..."
If they hadn't won, The Oregonian would have made much about it, no doubt calling it a referendum on 'gay' marriage.
With these results, I expect the silence from the editorial board will be obvious -- I don't expect any inferences from the vote on the subject of marriage equality to be drawn. We'll see.
Mark on 18 May 2004
Surely Fish and Naito both face run-offs. Can this really be considered a good result for Naito?
Scott on 18 May 2004
Is the City Commissioner #1 election a 'winner take all' or is it one of the 50%+1 types?
The One True b!X on 18 May 2004
Fish needs 50+1. It looks like my original call there will turn out to be wrong and we will have a runoff.
Arya on 18 May 2004
so who's organizing a write in campaign against randy?
we can still do it...26-53 doesn't take effect til the next cycle right ?
Aaron on 18 May 2004
Regarding KPTV's oops... earlier tonight KATU's site also showed an error, dropping Posey's count to 360 or so, ironically one vote at the time ahead of Jim Spagg.
KPTV's returns page looks a lot like KATU's. I wonder if these errors are originating from MultCo Elections. I hope not...
One other note: at 8:10 or so, when KGW first aired the Mayoral results, they indicated that the vote was 60% or so in. That clearly wasn't the case.
Why can't the commercial media ever get it right?
The One True b!X on 18 May 2004
More importantly, can we convince MultCo's elections people to publish RSS feeds for the results starting in November, so weblogs like, well, this one can provide their own live returns?
Aaron on 18 May 2004
KATU and KPTV both use the same elections processing system by Avid (which ties into their onscreen graphics), but clearly get their data from different sources.
As of 11:02, KPTV had Potter at 47% -- very close to the 50% line. KATU said 42%. MultCo's site said 41% as of 10pm.
More importantly, KPTV's percentages add up to 100 for just Potter, Francesconi, Posey, and Busey, when that's clearly not the case. Why can't they at least add an 'other', especially when the 50% threshhold is so important? 5 bucks says that if Potter did go over 50% in that scenario, they'd report him winning it all, which would be inaccurate. Surprise, surprise.
Matty on 19 May 2004
He reached out to Posey's voters as well
Matty on 19 May 2004
Potter reached out to Posey's voters as well...
Bot on 19 May 2004
I, for one, welcome our pending homophobic, racist, fascist, incompetant, police-state-loving, ex-Chief-of-Police overlord.
*sigh*... So depressing. I'm moving.
PDX Reporter on 19 May 2004
Are you referring to Tom Potter, "Bot"?
Well to call him homophobic is a little over the top since his daughter is a lesbian and he has apparently been behind her for all we know. Are you saying that isn't true?
And racist and fascist. Do you have any proof of that?
pdxkona on 19 May 2004
Tom Potter, homophobic?!?
Hahahahahahahaaaaa.....
Tell that to is his daughter and her wife.
Tell that to all the people waiting in the rain a month ago to get married who suddenly had a rose extended to them from the hand of Tom Potter.
Bob R. on 19 May 2004
"Bot" may just be trolling, but in case he is actually listening:
Tom Potter was the 1st Portland chief to march in a gay pride parade. As a result of his bold actions, subsequent chiefs have marched as well, even though privately they might be less than supportive.
I personally saw Potter down at the Mult. Co. bldg shaking the hands of same-sex couples and offering them congratulations.
Yes, politicians glad-hand all the time with those they don't necessarily like, but Potter wasn't handing out cards or flyers, and he appeared genuinely beaming with joy to be there. I heard somewhere (can't confirm) that he was there for his own daughter's legal marriage.
Perhaps you mistook Tom Potter for another more recent chief that was confirmed homophobic by the revalation of a speech he offered to a conservative church?
- Bob
no one in particular on 19 May 2004
Seems to be the same guy who posted this comment. So yeah, he's probably a troll.
Rob on 19 May 2004
Homophobic? As a cops kid I've been exposed to the rumour that Potter is an "in the closet homosexual". Most likely started within the cop shop since he was Chief, not to mention having a gay daughter and supporting gay rights.