Juggling three election jurisdictions on my pocket calculator last night with the results pouring in, I thought I was on top of the numbers.
In the light of day and with more time to compute, however, I found I was off by a couple of thousand votes. (My father was the accountant; I was an English major.)
Last night I had Jolie Justus beating Quinton Lucas by about 400 votes. I recomputed this morning and came up with Justus with 12,630 votes and Lucas 10,287.
The third through seventh positions looked like this:
Alissia Canady — 7,514
Steve Miller — 6,800
Scott Wagner — 5,044
Scott Taylor — 4,875
Phil Glynn — 4,358
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As expected, turnout was low. In Kansas City, 19 percent of registered voters cast ballots. In Platte County, it was 16 percent, and Clay County brought up the rear at slightly more than 13 percent.
The turnout will be significantly higher for the June 18 general election, and it’s hard to say if that will be of greater benefit to Justus or Lucas. It could help Justus because she is better known and has a deeper track record as an elected officeholder. On the other hand, Lucas has a more appealing personal story, having been raised by a single mother and having pulled himself to success through grit and intellect.
Justus will have near-unanimous support in the LGBTQ community, and Lucas will get the vast majority of African-American votes. He should pick up many of Canady’s votes, as well as those of Jermaine Reed, another African-American candidate, who finished eighth in the field of 11.
Another wild card is the DUI charge hanging over Lucas’ head out of Lawrence, KS, where he is a lecturer at the KU School of Law. He got a bum deal on that incident when an officer ticketed him after finding him asleep behind the wheel while parked and with the motor of his car running. He had been to a party, had some drinks, and when he got to his car, he started it but thought the better of driving and took a nap. Cop could have let him go but hauled him to jail.
Lucas is fighting the charge hard, and I would bet it will be dismissed. In any event, it didn’t seem to hurt him yesterday.
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By not endorsing Justus in the primary (it went for Canady and Glynn), The Kansas City Star has already boosted Lucas’ prospects. As my friend Clinton Adams told me the other day, that March 27 editorial “took some steam out of Justus and Miller.” The editorial gave Lucas a positive mention when it said: “We’re also impressed by councilman and KU law professor Quinton Lucas, who pushed through the city’s first incentive reform, capping abatements at 75 percent.”
As I said in last night’s post, I now expect Lucas to get The Star’s endorsement in the general election, and that could be a huge factor, mainly because, even with its influence on the wane, The Star holds sway with many elderly people. That’s the paper’s core constituency, and they vote.
The scene yesterday outside St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Meyer Boulevard and Wornall Road
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Let’s look at the results in the three most-contested, at-large City Council races.
In the 3rd District at large (the seat being vacated by Lucas), state Rep. Brandon Ellington defeated Wallace Hartsfield II, a minister, by a count of 25,261 to 18,770. Ellington turned to the council race because he is term-limited in his state office, now serving the last of his allowable four two-year terms. Both candidates will go on to the June 18 general election. Ellington has the advantage of name identity and previous public service, while Hartsfield has the support of Freedom Inc…Ellington will be difficult to beat.
In the 5th District at large, incumbent Lee Barnes Jr. easily defeated Dwayne Williams and Erik Dickinson. Barnes had 20,541 votes to 12,172 for Williams and 11,766 for Dickinson. Williams, president of the Twelfth Street Development Corporation, will advance to the general election, along with Barnes. Barnes ran with Freedom’s support in 2015, but Freedom grew disenchanted with him and threw its support to Williams this time around…Looks like Freedom is going to have to stomach Barnes for another four years.
In the 6th District at large (the seat Scott Taylor is vacating), Andrea Bough, a lawyer, outpaced Stacey Johnson-Cosby, a realtor, by a vote count of 25,879 to 18,580. Bough got the lion’s share of organizational endorsements. Johnson-Cosby’s prospects appear dim.
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In the 4th District at large, incumbent Katheryn Shields swamped two opponents in the primary and will be re-elected June 18 to a second four-year term. (This is Shields’ second go-round on the council, having also served from 1987 to 1994.)
In the 1st District at large, political newcomer Kevin O’Neill, owner and editor of the Labor Beacon newspaper, is unopposed.
In the 2nd District at large, incumbent Teresa Loar is unopposed.
We are light-years apart on the DUI. The officer did the right thing. Lucas could have come to still intoxicated, and then decided to drive off. Lord only knows what would have happened on the drive home.
I have discerned that The Star’s editorial board is endorsing based on your intersectionality score. For mayor, they picked the weakest white male to run against a very strong black woman in the general. The question now is do they pick the lesbian or the black male? Which is dominate, race, or sexual orientation?
What was the temperature in Lawrence the night Lucas was ticketed for DUI? Was he running the car to keep warm? In another incident, another state, a young man I know was ticketed for simply having the key in the ignition while he slept. He’d have been better off to have removed the key.