Election 2011: The Morning After

The ballots have been counted, and we’ve shaken the sleep from our eyes after waiting for last night’s election results to come in. Now that we can look at the results in the morning light, what lessons can we learn?

Prior experience trumps all

None of the five City Council candidates have served on the before, but two candidates ran away with the race—with the second-place finisher getting more than twice as many votes as the third-place finisher. What did Molly Cummings and Jason Gadd have in common? They both served on the Park Board, and Cummings—the largest vote-getter, by far—also served on the Zoning and Planning Commission.

By contrast, Norman Teigen put forward opinions similar to Cummings and Gadd. The outgoing Teigen campaigned tirelessly—knocking on doors throughout the city and greeting potential voters wherever he was. Yet he finished a distant fourth.

It’s not just about name recognition either. James Beauchene has run—and lost—in every City Council race since 2005. His strong emphasis on curtailing spending was the most unique position of the race, and he was arguably the most memorable candidate at forums where he argued for those cuts. Yet he finished dead last—earning just a little more than a quarter of the votes that Cummings got.

Similarly, Mayor Gene Maxwell trounced challenger Garold Healy 703 to 235.

"I think there's a certain group that's pretty well solidified in the city, and it is what it is," Healy said after learning the results.

The pattern was more mixed in the school board race. Two of the challengers—Steven Adams and Kris Newcomer—finished first and second. But incumbent Wendy Donovan finished a close third, despite only running what she characterized as a word-of-mouth campaign.

Even the challengers prove the rule. Adams served on the Minnetonka Planning Commission and worked on school district referendum campaigns. Newcomer co-chaired the referendum campaign and worked with the district’s budget committee and strategic planning committee.

Said Adams: “I think I’m just a known quantity.”

Incumbent Irma McIntosh Coleman is where the pattern breaks down. She was in a tight race with last-place finisher Tina Soumaré as the first results came, in but pulled ahead by the time the night was out.

Geography matters

Hopkins Public Schools’ boundaries cover all or part of seven different communities. True to that diversity, no one candidate ran away with all areas. Wendy Donovan finished third overall. But she’s an Edina resident who was chairwoman of the Parent Teacher Organization at Hopkins’ Katherine Curren Elementary before it closed. She was the overwhelming favorite in Hopkins and edged out the others in Edina.

Similarly, Newcomer owns in Minnetonka and is a well-know person in that community. Adams, as noted above, serves on the city’s planning commission. They placed first and second, respectively, in Minnetonka.

There is no mandate

The winners wound up finishing far ahead of those who didn’t make the cut, but they were careful not to interpret this as a mandate or anything more than a general vote in support of the current path.

The City Council and mayoral races, for example, centered on a debate between quality-of-life amenities and fiscal austerity. Yet Maxwell said he didn’t see the vote as a referendum on whether to keep any one particular service.

“What should be cut for one person is a godsend for another,” he said. “Until you really have a discussion with all the citizens of Hopkins about what should and shouldn’t be cut, you really can’t say anything.”

This is partly because low voter turnout means only a fraction of the population’s voice has been heard. Just 940 people voted in the mayoral election out of 9,691 people registered when polls opened Tuesday morning—a paltry 9.7 percent. That proportion is much, much lower when taking into account all the people who are not registered.

Healy said the turnout is a “sign of apathy” and an example of just how hard it is to get people involved.

"People have a right to vote, and they don't use it," he said. "It's a shame."

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Detailed Results