Mary Verner |
The Spokane mayoral win last week by Mary Verner – we can call it that loosely, since though some counting is yet to be done, opponent Dennis Hession has conceded – and analysis is coming in.
This runoff election was fairly close, enough that Hession’s decision not to concede for a couple of days was reasonable. In any close election, the tide can turn based on any number of factors – in this one, you possibly could point to a half-dozen elements that could credibly have made enough difference to flip the result. Here, we’ll look at two of them, one narrow but possibly impactful, and the other maybe helping to indicate why it had such impact, and why the race was close in the first place.
The closeness of the race was not foreordained. A year, we’d have given Hession, the incumbent mayor, a solid edge to win election. He had been appointed by the city council in 2005 to replace the recalled Jim West; the appointment was without controversy, and for quite some time Hession seemed to be successfully putting a fractured city on a coolly professional track. He was a stable downtown professional, and he seemed the image of why such people so often have become mayor of Spokane. Usually, some voter gratitude figures in when this sort of thing happens.
But earlier this year, two other council members decided to run against him, and Hession was held to less – far less – than 50% of the vote. That was a red flag; the voter gratitude that often applies to cases like Hession’s, didn’t in his. It mean that well over half of the voters wanted someone other than Hession as mayor. He came in first in the primary, but he started the runoff campaign from behind. Verner was the other council member to clear the primary.
Jim Camden of the Spokane Spokesman-Review has run a fine analysis of how the voting played out during the couple of weeks ballots were being cast. He focused on a commercial run by Hession – who substantially outspent Verner – may have affected the outcome. Commonly called “the puzzle piece,” it drew a lot of attention toward the end of the campaign; it took aim at aspects of Verner’s record on the council, building to the question of whether she had what it takes to be mayor. The spot drew sharp reaction, pro and con. Shortly after, as the campaign was ending, Hession switched to another spot, more positive about himself.
Camden: “On election night, the ballots tended to be from the voters who got their ballots, marked them and mailed them in quickly. That was the time when that commercial was airing. Verner built up a lead of almost 9 percent in those ballots. Ballots that were counted Wednesday and Thursday were those that tended to be mailed late in the campaign, or cast in the drop-off boxes on election night. Those tended to be from the time when his positive commercial was airing.” And among those ballots, Hession led in balloting on Wednesday, and held his own on Thursday.
It’s a compelling argument, and maybe a compelling argument to against over-reliance on negative campaign ads. But two questions remain unanswered: Why did the puzzle spot generate such negative reaction? And why was the race so close to begin with?
Take a look at a precinct map prepared by the Spokesman-Review showing the geographical breakdown of wins by Verner and Hession. Considering their positioning and background – both are attorneys, but Verner has been a staff leader for an Indian tribe organization not a downtown attorney – they can loosely be broken down as the “Democratic” and “Republican” candidates (recognizing that city offices formally are nonpartisan). If you superimposed legislative maps for legislative district 3 and district 6, which cover nearly all of Spokane (the city, not the county), you find that the areas voting strongly for Verner – the whole central area of the city – are the same as those voting Democratic for legislators, most strongly in 3 and to a lesser degree in 6. Hession’s best territory by far was on the edge of town, the far southern areas and the far northwest – both new and suburban growth areas. “Urban” Spokane voted solidly for Verner, as it did in 2006 for Democratic legislative candidates. The two are of a piece.
That explains why Verner, easily typecast as a Democrat, picked up steam. And why, when the heat came down and central city voters had to decide who to believe and who to back, they went the same way, rather than Hession’s.
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