Morning rundown of the Atlanta mayoral and City Council races
November 4, 2009 at 11:42 am by Mara Shalhoup in News
Here are some of the upsets, victories and head-scratchers in yesterday’s election:
Mayor’s race: Borders’ loss, Reed’s gain
The frontrunner in the race, Councilwoman Mary Norwood, took 45 percent of the vote, roughly five percentage points shy of an outright win (no surprise there). What’s a little more shocking is the epic stumble of City Council President Lisa Borders. State Sen. Kasim Reed, who will face Norwood in a Dec. 1 runoff, got 38 percent of the vote — a whopping 24-percentage-point lead over Borders. In September, Borders’ polling numbers dropped from 34 to 27 points. Last week, an Insider Advantage poll had her at 16 percent. She wound up with 14 percent. What happened to Lisa?
City Council President: Horseshoes and hand grenades
Councilman Ceasar Mitchell was a mere 125 376 votes shy of winning the City Council Prez seat. Instead, Mitchell — who got 49.78 49.4 percent of the vote — will face face Clair Muller in the runoff. The big WTF? is this: City Council heckler Dave Walker somehow got 10 percent of the vote, most likely forcing the runoff.
City Council Post-1 At Large: Legacy vote
Former Councilman and Michael Julian Bond, son of civil rights leader Julian Bond, stomped grassroots community activist Adam Brackman, with 55 percent of the vote to Brackman’s 22. Oh well.
City Council Post-2 At Large: Closer than expected
Yep, three of the four top-ticket races will go to a runoff. The immensely promising Grant Park resident and attorney Amir Farokhi got 41 percent of the vote, compared to the 43 percent that went to the immensely qualified Aaron Watson.
City Council District 6: Twenty- Sixty-six-vote spread???
In the crowded race to fill the seat representing popular intown neighborhoods Virginia-Highland and Morningside, Alex Wan coasted to the runoff with 33 32 percent of the vote. But who will be his opposition? Challengers Tad Christian and Liz Coyle each got 22 percent of the vote — Christian with 1,618 votes and Coyle with 1,598. THIS JUST IN: COYLE SAYS THAT THE FINAL NUMBERS DON’T INCLUDE THREE PRECINCTS IN DEKALB, WHICH GIVES HER THE EDGE. UPDATE: The DeKalb numbers give Coyle 2,030 votes to Christian’s 1,964. That actually puts her at 23 percent. Christian’s still at 22.
City Council District 11: Wiping her feet
Looks like Keisha Lance-Bottoms rocked this race. In a field of nine candidates, she managed to pull 54 percent of the vote. Wow.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
November 4th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Final numbers on district 6:
Alex Wan 2,973 31%
Liz Coyle 2,121 23%
Tad Christian 2,041 22%
Steve Brodie 1,270 14%
So it will be Wan and Coyle.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Great update, where did you get the numbers for the district race?
November 4th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
So it’s ADA vs ABI in the D6 runoff. Unfortunately for the neighborhoods, they both want 8 storey buildings up and down Monroe by Piedmont Park. Something in the ‘Beltline district’ has to pay for the Wayne Mason ripoff. So it looks miserably as if the runoff choice is whether you like your 8-storey buildings gay or straight, polarized or divisive.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
“What happened to Lisa?”
She had the creme de la creme of dumb bunnies staffing her campaign, that’s what.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Confirming Rico from Tampico’s observation: Borders had the worst staff imaginable. Her taxpayer-paid Council staff was completely out of touch and her campaign staff was… by and large, her taxpayer-paid Council staff. Will someone please make a Freedom of Information Act request on those Council staff computers? Lots of campaign-related work going on there!