They’ll be dissecting this one for months.
City Council President Lovely Warren has soundly defeated Tom Richards in the Democratic primary for mayor. Unofficial results from the Monroe County Board of Elections put the margin of victory at approximately 57 percent to 42 percent.
This makes the general election infinitely more interesting. Warren and Richards will face-off again — Richards has the backing of the Independence and Working Families parties — and they’ll be joined by Green Party candidate Alex White.
Richards had big advantages in money and endorsements, and all of the polls conducted in this race gave him a respectable lead. But the only thing that matters on election day is how many people pick your name.
Turnout was significantly lower than expected — about 23 percent as of 8 p.m., according to the Board of Elections.
Did the 90-degree temperature keep Richards’ supporters away? Did the Richards-heavy polls convince them they had nothing to worry about, so they didn’t bother voting? Warren did a strong get-out-the-vote push and repeatedly emphasized to her supporters that they had to register and that they had to vote.
Warren’s central focus in this campaign was education, and that seems to have connected with voters.
There will be no shortage of theories in the coming weeks.
OTHER RESULTS
CITY COUNCIL
All five City Council incumbents won. Dana Miller, Loretta Scott, Jackie Ortiz, Matt Haag, and Carolee Conklin go on to November’s general election, where they’ll face the Rev. Marlowe Washington again — Washington was in the primary but lost — and Green Party candidates Drew Langdon, David Atias, and Dorothy Page.
SCHOOL BOARD
Despite huge public concern about the state of Rochester’s schools, voters returned the incumbents. Van White was the clearest winner among city school board candidates, the only one gathering more than 20 percent of the vote. White was followed by incumbent Cynthia Elliott. Incumbent Jose Cruz has narrowly defeated newcomer Candice Lucas.
But the election’s impact on city schools may not come from the school board. City Council President Lovely Warren ran almost entirely on two themes: education and the “two Rochesters” that has largely been the result of failing city schools.
While Mayor Tom Richards and Superintendent Bolgen Vargas have forged a strong working relationship, the Rochester school district may need to brace for a less supportive Warren administration. Warren has been a strong advocate for charter schools.
Though there was wide speculation that school board challengers Candice Lucas and Liz Hallmark might pick off at least one of the incumbent seats, it seems Cynthia Elliott benefited from a strong Warren showing, too.
SUBURBS
The Henrietta Republican supervisor primary will likely end in an upset, with Town Board member Jack Moore defeating sitting Supervisor Michael Yudelson. The Henrietta Republican Committee had backed Yudelson in the race.
While Moore will have the Republican line in the November general election, he’s not guaranteed the supervisor seat. He won’t face a Democratic challenger, since the party isn’t running anybody. Yudelson, however, will still be on the ballot since he has the Conservative and Independence lines. A post on Yudelson’s Facebook page gives the impression that he does plan to continue his campaign.
Moore received approximately 66 percent of the vote while Yudelson received approximately 34 percent.
In Perinton’s Republican supervisor primary, County Legislator Mike Barker was on track to a sharp victory over Edmund Dunn. Barker, who was the Perinton Republican Committee’s endorsed candidate, received 84 percent of the vote.
Results are unofficial and do not include absentee ballots, the counts for which the county Board of Elections hasn’t yet posted.
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2013.
Just when we thought this burg couldn’t produce a candidate for mayor more unqualified than Bill Johnson, Bob Duffy or Tom Richards, along comes Lovely Warren.
Rochester’s race to the bottom continues.
I like Richards’ vision of investing in downtown and transitioning neighborhoods to compete for young professionals, empty-nesters, & other people who are considering a return to urban living by choice. Upscale residential development admittedly predates Richards’ control, but Richards has increased momentum, is the only mayor who has made headway on fixing Main & Clinton, and has even garnered investment in neighborhoods outside of the southeast quadrant.
It’s perhaps a fair criticism to say that there’s “two Rochesters” and that Richards seems focused mainly on one, but what’s wrong with wanting your city to be upwardly mobile? And have the other neighborhoods really been terribly neglected? Richards has supported development wherever the market would invest and has done a reasonably good job of dealing with blight, e.g. replacing abandoned buildings with neighborhood peace gardens.
I do question whether Rochester Police could potentially be more effectively managed, and not merely to be more sensitive, but rather to command more respect and particularly to be more proactive especially in dealing with drug houses. I get it that if a majority of residents in a particular neighborhood want to use hard drugs, eliminating those becomes a difficult proposition, but I don’t see why there’s so little apparent effort.
It’s obvious that Lovely Warrens’ supporters were far more enthusiastic about their candidate than Tom Richards’ supporters were; his simply didn’t show up. I think it is doubtful that Richards will continue on the Independence and Working Families lines, but stranger things have happened, and it would be one hell of a race. I hope Alex White and the Green candidates for City Council and School Board get a fair airing before the November election. No candidates should be crowned victors before the votes are cast, as tonights results certainly proved. Lovely Warren and the rest of the incumbents re-elected tonight should face honest questions about their vision for Rochester. The Greens do have an alternate vision, and Rochestarians are not without a choice come November, even if most people think it has already been made for them.
Maybe at this point it should just be obvious that there aren’t good potential mayoral candidates in the pipeline. Richards is a dud, but — although I would love to see someone other than an old white guy in the mayor’s office! — he’s got the management and policy chops for the job. Warren has a passion for the city and for service, but not the experience or breadth of skills the job demands. The baseline reality, however, is that neither is a thrilling candidate, and neither is likely to be the kind of long-term transformational leader that Rochester needs. I’m a young professional who grew up in the city, and I’ve been thinking about moving home to work and live there. With the results of this primary, I might think again…
It has been clear to me from the start that Tom Richards didn’t want to do the work of running for mayor. He accepted his installation as mayor through some shady insider manipulation. The Republican-in-disguise lost fair and square dueto his own smugness and that of the Deomcratic establishment. Rochester didn’t need someone so disconnected from what was really going on.
In November, voters will have the chance to vote for the only innovative candidate who has a proven track record of truly new ideas and real solutions Rochester needs. That candidate is the Green Party’s Alex White.
Rochester voters have just proven their ability to break out of the status quo that favors the big money-slick TV ad candidate. In Novermber Rochester voters can can go a step farther and vote for Alex White and all the Green Party candidates on Row F.
Hopefully the first thing that Mayor Warren’s handlers will tell her to do is to trash the asinine Duffy-Richards Port of Rochester Marina project. If we must spend millions of scarce tax dollars we should at least spend them downtown where they’ll benefit all segments of the population and not just the yacht club types and a handful of lakeside condo owner wannabes. After all, even Bob Duffy started his maladministration with one intelligent decision when he killed off that other Charlotte boondoggle, Bill Johnson’s Less-Than-Fast-Ferry.
First, this is only the Democratic primary. There are other voters to be heard from including Independents like myself. I imagine Warren got a good fraction of her potential total supporters out yesterday.
I have to comment on the “Warren’s central focus in this campaign was education”. To have her message on education taken seriously – in particular as an African American candidate running what appears to be an African American-centric campaign – and not even begin to acknowledge the giant issue driving the “failing” schools is striking. That issue I see several days a week as a volunteer tutor and that is unbelievably low commitment to education amongst many African American students and their parents.
It was welcome news that a recent gathering of African American ministers acknowledged this situation. But where is Lovely Warren on this issue or any other critical look at the African American community?
First of all, Mr.Richards, as CEO of RG&E, did not promote innovation, and certainly did not lower the high cost of electricity for local consumers. He DID however, manage to sell the company to a Spanish company. Secondly, he has not achieve a clear vision that excited residents-it was more a reaction to projects already underway. Creative initiative has not been a part of his administration. Perhaps Ms. Warren will be a Corey Booker-type of mayor, not the cocktail circuit, political insider that Mr. Richards became.
“Major upset” indeed. Particularly for the Smugtown elite. I won’t name names.