By Precinct: How Taylor Won Ann Arbor

Final unofficial results from the Washtenaw County clerk’s office have confirmed the results of early, informal reports directly from the Aug. 5, 2014 polls: Christopher Taylor has won the Democratic nomination for mayor of Ann Arbor.

Precincts are shaded by strength of each candidate. Kunselman (red), Taylor (green), Briere (blue) and Petersen (orange).

Incumbent mayor John Hieftje is not seeking re-election, and there is no Republican candidate. Taylor will face independent Bryan Kelly in the Nov. 4 general election.

Some observers felt the four-way race could be won with as little as 35% of the vote. Taylor achieved a near majority, but fell a couple of percentage points short of 50% citywide. Taylor received 7,070 votes (47.6%) compared to Sabra Briere’s 2,967 (20%), Stephen Kunselman’s 2,447 (16.5%) and Sally Petersen’s 2,364 (15.9%).

The 16,591 ballots cast translated into a turnout of 16.67% registered voters citywide.

The ranking and clustering of the four candidates was roughly consistent with the amount of money each campaign raised in the pre-primary period – if the self-funded portion of Petersen’s campaign is discounted.

The rank order and clustering of candidates was also consistent with the results of a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling about a week before  the election. That poll also showed Taylor as a clear favorite over the other three candidates, who were grouped significantly behind, with Briere slightly stronger than Kunselman and Petersen.

Outgoing Democratic mayor John Hieftje never lost any of the city’s 48 precincts in seven election cycles. Taylor prevailed in 39 precincts. Briere won seven of them, while Kunselman won his home precinct in Ward 3. Briere and Petersen tied for most votes in one precinct – splitting the two votes in the lightly voted Precinct 1-1.

Taylor had the highest vote totals in each of the city’s five wards, with a majority of votes in three of them. In Ward 3, Ward 4 and Ward 5, Taylor received 50.4%, 52% and 50.6%, respectively.

All four candidates did best on their home turf – Briere in Ward 1, Petersen in Ward 2, Kunselman in outer Ward 3. But Taylor was strong not just in the Burns Park neighborhood of Ward 3, but also citywide, achieving better than 50% in 13 of 48 individual precincts, while winning 39 of them.

Charts of results by ward, as well as dynamic color-coded maps for each mayoral candidate, are presented below.

Charts by Ward

Ward 5 mirrored the citywide trend and rank order of candidates. Ward 4 and Ward 3 were similar – except that Kunselman did slightly better than Briere in both of those wards. The results in Ward 2 showed Petersen ahead of Briere and Kunselman but still behind Taylor. And in Ward 1, Taylor only narrowly outpolled Briere – by 29 votes.

           W1     W2     W3     W4     W5
Briere    740    384    467    389    987 
Kunselman 239    447    703    437    621 
Petersen  260    949    355    329    471 
Taylor    769  1,363  1,551  1,254  2,133

-

Chart 1: By ward including total citywide. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from Washtenaw County clerk’s office.)

Chart 2: By ward only. (Chart by The Chronicle with data from Washtenaw County clerk’s office.)

Dynamic Maps

Maps for each candidate are colored by precinct based on percentage of the vote they received.

Maps: Briere

Maps: Kunselman

Maps: Petersen

Maps: Taylor

The Chronicle could not survive without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local elections. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already voting for The Chronicle, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!