Obligatory Post Election Post

Highlights with 110 of 124 precincts reporting:

-       Once again, the HCEA demonstrated its electoral intelligence and clout.  They endorsed three strong Board of Education candidates, who emerged as the top three vote-getters.  45.7% of the total BoE votes cast (179, 469 and counting…bearing in mind that voters could vote for up to three candidates) were for HCEA-backed candidates.

-       Coombs, Delmont-Small, and Ellis were smart to focus their campaigns on positive, reform-centric themes. 

-       Giles clearly made an attempt to create some distance between herself and the other incumbents.  One could argue that this modified triangulation strategy succeeded only in reinforcing the anti-incumbent frame.

-       With two Board of Education incumbents losing their re-election bids, the question becomes:  what is the best vehicle for ensuring Siddiqui’s defeat in November?  With five very good challenger options, some strategic voting might prove necessary in the general election to ensure a clean sweep.  

-       It’s time for Sanders voters (I was one) to recognize that Clinton is the best and only hope for progressives who wish to build upon the Obama Administration’s successes. 

-       I was hoping that Edwards would be more competitive in Howard County.  That said, Van Hollen's nomination should ensure that Maryland is represented by two Democrats in the U.S. Senate in the next Congress.   

 Stay tuned, as more will follow.

Figuring Out a Way to Work Together

The Howard County Board of Education General Election returns revealed some interesting outcomes.

Based on the still unofficial results:

1. Cindy Vaillancourt obtained the highest number of votes of the eight candidates on the ballot in 57 of the 118 Election Day precincts.  She finished second in another 39 precincts…and in the top four in 117 (all but one of the smaller ones).  She performed well countywide and crushed in Board of Elections Voting District 6 (southeast HoCo: Laurel, Columbia, Jessup, a bit of Ellicott City and Fulton) where she won 27 of the 35 precincts.

Bottom line:  This election served as a vote of confidence in the oft-embattled Vaillancourt. Even with lower turnout, there is no other way to read this outcome.  The other Board Members need to take note, and I am assuming they have already.

2. Sandie French garnered a plurality of the vote in 43 precincts and placed second in another 30.  She also banked the greatest number of early votes (9,721 compared to 9,561 for Vaillancourt).  She fared best in Board of Elections Voting District 2 (Ellicott City) where she won 15 of 26 precincts and also ran well in Board of Elections Voting Districts 3 (primarily West Friendship, Marriottsville, and a slice of western Ellicott City) and 4 (western Howard County) where she won five of six and four of six precincts respectively.

Bottom line:  French capitalized on the strong name identification she has built up over her years of service, a good organization and solid forum performances.  As I noted earlier, incumbents are tough to defeat and this race was no exception.

3. Bess Altwerger won four precincts and finished second in 30.  She was a fine candidate and a prime example that the Howard County Education Association’s backing is important in BoE general elections.  She banked 8,274 early votes, which helped propel her to a third-place finish overall.

4. Christine O’Connor ran away with Voting District 1 (Elkridge, the eastern part of Ellicott City) where she placed first in 13 of the 21 precincts and second in four others.  Overall, she won 18 districts and obtained a second place showing in another 16.  Her strength was concentrated in eastern HoCo but she performed well enough countywide to place in the top four, approximately 200 votes behind Altwerger.  Her 7,426 early votes were 650 more than Dan Furman’s tally.

  

5.  51.95% of the votes cast for Board of Education candidates were cast for candidates supported by the HCEA.  They backed four candidates, two of whom were elected, with the others finishing with respectable fifth and sixth place showings.  It would have been extremely difficult for the full slate to have been successful, given French’s presence on the ballot.  The HCEA would have helped elect a third but O’Connor (an educator) ran a smart campaign and took the fourth position.

Shifting away from numbers for a moment, it is my hope that the two new Members will help usher in a new Era of Good Feelings on the Board of Education.  No one is asking for hand-holding and exchanges of “You are my BFF” texts but the corrosive environment has not been healthy for the Board, for the Howard County Public School System, or the County as a whole.  Now is the time to begin a new dynamic, one that is productive but also conciliatory, respectful and civil. 

Stay tuned, as more will follow.

HoCo BoE & HCEA (On Apples and Ballots)

A follow-up on my post from yesterday:

There is enough general mishegas going on in and around the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS to you and me) that could lead to a major upheaval in the Board of Education race. Given the players and issues involved, there is sufficient atmospheric volatility that might generate some unexpected outcomes.    

Nevertheless, I would still wager that both incumbents seeking another term in office will be re-elected.  Perhaps one of them ends up in third place but, as of this writing, Vaillancourt and French are good bets for a one-two finish in November.

Regarding the impact of the Howard County Education Association (HCEA) on the HoCo BoE primary election results….well, I thought I already wrote about this.  A long-time reader asked me about it and I was 95% certain it was covered in another post.  So I searched for it online, nothing. 

I have a folder containing about a dozen half-written posts…just random paragraphs sitting around, waiting to be shaped into something, or discarded entirely.  As it turns out, the BoE/Apple Ballot text was right there. So let me combine that (brief) review with the precinct analysis I conducted recently.

In short, the HCEA endorsement of Altwerger, Beams, Furman and Vaillancourt were significant vote drivers, and were of particular importance for the first three names in this sentence.  Given the amount (of dollars) spent on the race by the candidates themselves (negligible), the HCEA money and muscle that went to work for the four constituted a major voter information delivery vehicle. And it produced.

Let us look at this another way.  If you collapse all of the candidate votes (at the polls, absentee, provisional and early voting center) into one bucket and divide it by the number of precincts in Howard County (118), you end up with the following votes in this artificially constructed “average” precinct:

1.     Vaillancourt   134 (HCEA backed)(Incumbent)

2.     French             124 (Incumbent)

3.   Altwerger       108 (HCEA backed)

4.   Furman          101 (HCEA backed)

____________________________________Top Four Vote-Getters

5.   Beams              85 (HCEA backed)

6.   O’Connor         72

7.   Dyer                  65

8.   Smith                57

____________________________________Top Eight Advance to the General Election

9.   Kornreich         54

10. Butler                50    

11. Evans Arthurs 49    

12. Andrews           49

13. Baek                   47

                                   

As always, this is strictly my opinion.  While I don’t have any poll data to verify the following hypothesis, I believe – without the HCEA endorsement – that Vaillancourt would have placed second in the June election.  Her 10-vote per precinct victory margin over French – who is practically a Howard County institution - was supplied by her inclusion on the Apple Ballot. 

And while Altwerger, Furman and Beams are known in certain communities, none of them have the name ID enjoyed by the two incumbents on the ballot; not amongst the primary electorate as a whole.  Dyer is probably better known than those three, even if his Fav/Unfav nets out break-even or negative (again, I have no current data on this). So while they all have strengths, I am inclined to believe that their respective third, fourth and fifth place finishes were driven, in large measure, by the energetic support of the HCEA.

So let future candidates for the BoE – incumbents and challengers alike – take note of that.

Will I be writing about the Kittleman ad blitz soon? Oh yes.

Stay tuned, as more will follow.