The Seattle Times has an excellent electoral map of last month’s Seattle Mayoral Primary. (A County Executive map is here).
As you might expect, Mallahan captured a lot of the extremely wealthy coastal precincts, and McGinn did strongly in the urban environmentalist cores of Ballard and Capitol Hill. It’s gratifying to see McGinn did so well in the Ballard neighborhoods that would theoretically benefit from the deep-bore tunnel.
What I find interesting is that the only really solid belt of Nickels support starts downtown and runs through Southeast Seattle. That may be because of the working class (and therefore heavily unionized) character of many of these neighborhoods, or possibly race, but I can’t help but notice that this belt of green also happens to correspond to the course of light rail.
I’d like to think this means light rail is a political winner once people actually get to experience it.
Small PNG version at http://publicola.net/?p=13786
Wallingford and the U-District also went for McGinn which has to be embarrassing for Mallahan (who is from Wallingford).
That map is precisely why I think Mallahan has the inside track on the Mayor’s race.
The map shows that McGinn played very well on Cap Hill, Fremont, and to a lesser extend Freelard/Ballard. These are areas where extreme liberalism and greenness (including being anti-car) play much better than in the rest of the city. It’s highly unlikely that positions that play very well in Cap Hill and Fremont are going to find widespread support in the rest of the city. Thus I would expect Mallahan to pick up more of the Nickels votes than will McGinn.
Additionally, both Nickels and Mallahan are pro-tunnel, so if you are a pro-tunnel Nickels supporter you are much more likely to switch to Mallahan than you are to McGinn. Again Mallahan gets more of the Nickels votes than does McGinn.
Of course so little is known about Mallahan that there could still be a landmine out there, but only time will tell….
lazarus,
I think your analysis is far too simplistic. For one remember that Nickels is both very liberal and very green. For another you are assuming pro/anti car and pro/anti tunnel are the only dynamics in this election.
Whichever candidate can win over the CD and SE Seattle will win the election. Union endorsements will play a big role, but whichever candidate does the best job of reaching out to the CD and SE Seattle and their particular concerns will win those neighborhoods.
If Mallahan continues to come off as a completely uninformed dope on what should be his natural turf he’s not likely to win though. His performance at the Chamber of Commerce debate was downright embarrassing.
I couldn’t agree more when I come to Mallahan’s performance at the debate yesterday. The kicker for me was that he didn’t even stand up for the final remarks, and McGinn felt that it was the ‘thing to do’.
Also, one when I first looked at that map, I looked at the Rainier Valley. I assumed that Nickels would fair well in that area because of light rail, but the data just confirmed my assumptions.
Neither of them has really addressed any CD and SE Seattle issues. They aren’t talking at all about crime or any of that. I don’t live down there but I go to school at Garfield and I know that something really needs to be done to stop gang violence.
It would also be interesting to see a map which shows percentage of registered voters who actually voted in the primary. If the Nickles/Drago voters split between Mallahan and McGinn, for McGinn to win, he will need a very large turnout in those areas where he did well in the primary.
Please explain the logic behind “gratifying to see McGinn did so well in the Ballard neighborhoods that would theoretically benefit from the deep-bore tunnel”.
Currently traffic to/from Ballard can access Hwy. 99 at Western which would be eliminated with the tunnel alignment.
The logic is that Ballard residents would benefit more (in terms of shorter auto travel times) for the tunnel than McGinn’s surface street approach.
This is true, but I think martin’s point was that it’s refreshing to see Ballard residents opposing the tunnel IN SPITE of the inconvenience its absence might cause us.
Definitely agreed that whoever can win over the CD is going to have a good edge. Have zero evidence from my friends and neighbors that Mallahan is making much if any effort. Would add that if you look at precincts north of 90 and west of MLK (1) McGinn wins quite a few non-Cap Hill areas, albeit with less than 40%, and (2) most of Nickels’ support is also in the less than 40% category.
I continue to wonder why Mallahan wants to be Mayor. He’s clearly not informed (or is doing a good job of appearing uninformed at least) on a variety of issues.
Another possible factor: will R-71 lead to greater-than-usual turnout in the younger (more pro-McGinn) neighborhoods?
Interesting. If you look at the areas where Hutchison took more than 50% of the vote it’s no exaggeration to say she is a fringe candidate. It’s obvious Seattle’s half million votes are going to be solidly behind Constantine but the election is really going to be won or lost in the population centers on the eastside. I sure hope Dow devotes more time hugging the centerline than hugging trees or we are on the road to ruin.
FWIW, I was sure Nickels was a shoe in and I was convinced the Democrates would never nominate Obama because there’s no way he could win in the general election. If you want my prediction in the mayor’s race, too close to call ;-)
Moving from a primary to the general you expect higher turnout from younger voters, and those are definitely McGinn voters.
Has anybody seen a logical, quantified breakdown of Seattle personal voter interests on the Viaduct issue?
I mean something like this three-way that I carry in my head:
(1) People to the north of downtown and south of downtown who use the Viaduct regularly to bypass downtown quickly. [“I love the Viaduct” bumper stickers are made for them.] These folks are squinting hard at the actual access paths to and from a new bypass tunnel, and the size of the likely toll to use it. There is no bus transit on this route, and all transit alternatives now and for the visible future (including full ST2) are much, much slower than driving the Viaduct.
(2) People to the south of downtown [West Seattle, South Park, and elsewhere] who use the Viaduct regularly to go into downtown … over 400 Metro bus trips on this route last time I counted. I would merge into this group also the people living downtown who use the viaduct to access points southward. There is no north equivalent for this group … reflects the asymmetry in the ramp access to the Viaduct. The bypass tunnel does nothing directly for the trips by this group, but they will pay taxes on it, and the Belltown condo tower dwellers can worry about Beacon Hill type voids as the TBMs roar underneath.
(3) Finally, a vast number of people whose main attitude is shaped by what a butt ugly, noisy, seismically dangerous monster the Viaduct is for the Seattle waterfront. I suspect that this is the largest group, numerically. The bypass tunnel does nothing directly for the trips by this group, but they pay taxes. It’s easy for folks here to take a green position on the Viaduct replacement, since they’ve rarely had the chance to experience the views from the Viaduct while riding in a Prius or Metrobus.
The vast majority of suburbanites reside in the third group, though not all, especially those close to Puget Sound north and south of the city limits.
All three of these groups can have intellectual/moral positions on the bypass tunnel related to supporting commerce and environment, but the pocketbook and personal mobility issues probably dominate, yes? So the distribution of registered voters in these three groups is important to predicting the Mayoral vote.
Let me give you a Ballard/Magnolia downtown by-passer, reverse psychology perspective — many toll-tunnel haters are also Viaduct tear-down haters! Since the current position of the State government is to wait on tearing down the Viaduct until the bypass tunnel is complete, McGinn may represent the Seattle North enders best hope for keeping the Viaduct in place for a long, long time, since he will launch a fight over the tunnel. That fight could last for the lifetime of many in the North end.
Some of us experience a little secret thrill upon completing a car ride on the Viaduct — great views, great time savings, free ride where there someday will be a toll … and best of all, no earthquake, no accident, and cheated death once again! I tend to side with these thrill seekers even as I cringe while standing under the Viaduct.
Are there any polls out about the mayor’s race after the primary?
Also, I haven’t heard much about the housing levy. Anyone know how that’s doing?