The most important work for the Henry and Hughes campaigns today will be to get supporters to the polls.
The lower the turnout, the more vital it is to get residents aligned with your candidate to vote. And a low turnout is expected today.
The benchmark for turnout was the 53,000 voters who cast ballots in 2007, the first election to include annexed Aboite Township. Even then, many Republicans may well have stayed home over unhappiness with the party’s mayoral candidate, Matt Kelty.
Politicians and observers will look to see whether the trend in increased participation in the mayoral election continues. The last city election’s vote totals were well above 2003 (just fewer than 47,000), 1999 (43,000) and 1995 (34,000).
Every vote counts
If you’re uncertain about voting, you don’t have to look far for evidence that every vote does matter. The 1999 election stands as proof.
Graham Richard beat Linda Buskirk by 129 votes – three-tenths of 1 percent. One additional vote in each of the city’s 196 precincts at the time could have changed the outcome.
More evidence came four years ago. Karen Goldner defeated longtime City Council incumbent Don Schmidt by a vote of 4,562 to 4,549 – a margin of 13 votes.
The mayor’s race and the race between Goldner and Russ Jehl could be just as close this year.
The results
Don’t be surprised if early totals this evening look good for Democrats – a result of geography and demographics, not necessarily trends.
The precincts closest to the Allen County Election Board’s downtown office tend to trend Democratic. Those vote totals arrive first.
The more Republican areas of the city, including Aboite and St. Joseph townships, are the farthest from downtown, so those precincts are among the last counted.
Find results this evening at our website, www.journalgazette.net.
The next one
In a simpler time, Hoosiers could look forward to Wednesday – the day after the election – as the first day of the 2012 campaign. But anyone who follows politics knows that campaigns for president, governor and U.S. Senate have already begun.
The hottest race in the state, at least in the primary, is shaping up to be between veteran U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, who is facing a GOP primary challenge from Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer. And a poll last week gave both sides reasons to gloat.
The WISH-TV/Franklin College poll of Marion County Republicans found Lugar’s name recognition is well above Mourdock’s, and that 59 percent have a favorable impression of Lugar, compared with 17 percent for Mourdock. On the horse-race question, Lugar outpaced Mourdock 49-28. While these results look good for Lugar, Mourdock said he was “delighted with those numbers.”
Why? For such a longtime incumbent to score less than 50 percent in his home county is a sign of vulnerability in May.
