Stories indexed with the term ‘mayoral election’

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.

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. [Full Story]

From July 28-29, several Ann Arbor residents reported being polled by telephone about their preferences in the upcoming Democratic mayoral primary election. The Chronicle has obtained the results of that poll of 435 likely voters by Public Policy Polling (PPP), a North Carolina polling firm.

They show Ward 3 councilmember Christopher Taylor to be a clear favorite, with about a week to go before the Aug. 5, 2014 primary. Taylor polled at 39% compared to 19% for Ward 1 councilmember Sabra Briere.

Ward 3 councilmember Stephen Kunselman and Ward 2 councilmember Sally Petersen polled a few points behind Briere at 15% and 13% respectively.

The poll indicates that 15% of voters still haven’t made up their minds. Margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 4.7%.

The relatively large four-candidate field is attributable to the fact that no incumbent is in the race.

Kunselman was the first of the four candidates to declare his candidacy – before mayor John Hieftje announced last year he would not be seeking reelection to an eighth two-year term.

The PPP poll also asked respondents if they approved of the job that Hieftje was doing as mayor.

One of the patterns revealed in the analysis of the poll responses is that Kunselman would be a 12-point favorite if the election were held just among those voters who disapproved of Hieftje’s performance. But the poll indicated that only 27% of Ann Arbor voters disapproved of Hieftje’s performance.

A polling question that asked about favorable or unfavorable opinions of candidates – independently of an inclination to vote for them – showed Kunselman polling with the highest unfavorable opinion numbers, at 36%. But the “not sure” category for that question polled fairly high across all candidates, ranging from 29% to 43%.

The poll also included two questions about future growth – one about downtown development, and the other about the need for an improved train station. The poll indicated 46% support for the downtown projects that have been approved and built in recent years and 39% opposition. The need for a new train station polled at 52%, while the alternate view – that the current station is adequate – polled at 35%.

The content of the poll – which evinces some knowledge by its creator of the Ann Arbor political landscape – was not commissioned by The Chronicle or by any of the four mayoral campaigns. Tom Jensen grew up in Ann Arbor and is now director at Public Policy Polling, a firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina. But Jensen still follows Ann Arbor politics. It was Jensen who put the poll together – out of his own interest. And it was Jensen’s voice that was used in the interactive voice response (IVR) technology deployment of the Ann Arbor mayoral poll.

The poll drew as a sample all those who’d participated in any primary election (Democratic or Republican) since 2006. Poll respondents included 32% Republican or other non-Democratic affiliation.

In a telephone interview, Jensen stressed that any poll result should be viewed with a lot of caution, especially with local elections. “I would definitely, as a pollster, encourage people to take caution in over-interpreting one poll of a low-turnout race in the middle of the summer. You’re definitely prone to more error.”

But based on the results of this poll, he said he was 99% confident that Taylor was going to be the next mayor of Ann Arbor.

Additional charts and some additional background on the polling methodology are presented below. [Full Story]