Brookings Banter

In a three way race for two seats on Brookings City Council, Ginger Thomson lost her re-election bid Tuesday night because the other two candidates had supporters that were willing to give up one of their votes to make sure their man won.  Shooting the bullet, as it is sometimes called, is when a voter can select more than one candidate for an office but chooses to vote only for one.  The un-official results show that out of 2,162 voters 755 under voted.  35% of the voters only chose one candidate. Ginger only lost by 86 votes to Mike Bartley and would have topped Mike McClemens with 130 votes.  Just a few less under voted ballots and the race results would gave been very different.  Bartley and McClemens have and will have different opinions regarding city issues.  Their strong supporters shot themselves in the foot by electing two members who will often cancel out each others votes.

Ryan Brunner won with margin of 458 votes over Joyce Hodges in a three way race for a single 1 year seat on the City Council.  Larry Mix received 493 votes in that race.  Mix and Hodges total votes would have beat Ryan by a slim margin.  Joyce and Larry probably spilt the mature voting base. What would have been interesting if only Joyce opposed Ryan.  Would she have picked up enough of Larry's votes to win?  Ryan had a great campaign plan and executed it with a great volunteer group.  This will not be the last election Ryan Brunner wins. 

I think Matt Vukovich will be a great member of the School Board.  I was concerned with his lack of retail politics (yard signs, media adds) compared to opponent Anne Werpy.   Matt had a big ground swell support group and was well enough known in the community to win the race.  Although Anne was active with PTA and School Board, several in those same circles did not agree with her on issues.  I always look for a well rounded school board candidate.  School Board issues break out of the classroom into society all the time.