Crunching the Numbers at Last

Crunching the Numbers at Last

I finally recovered enough to go over the Johnson County numbers. Here's the statewide and the local. Caveat: in Johnson County absentee is about a quarter of the vote in this election and it gets up over 40% in generals. By law absentee can’t be broken out by precinct which drives numbers nerds like me crazy. Anyway the early vote went Blouin 42, Fallon 34, Culver 22 – a couple points heavier for Blouin than the overall.

In Iowa City proper, Blouin edged Fallon by one point 38-37. Mike took the east side, most of the west side, the southeast and Manville Heights. Fallon was the only candidate to win absolute majorities anywhere, topping 50% in the student precincts (though absolute numbers were tiny), and in the liberal heart of the city, precincts 18-21. No shocker there. Culver won only Iowa City precinct 8, full of new development.

Outside Iowa City, it was Blouin over Culver 41-31 with Fallon third (25). Ed won the old part of Coralville and one small rural precinct. Blouin took most of the rest except Culver carried one rural and Lone Tree, a small town struggling with identity (I lived there and they can’t accept that they’re an exurb.) Blouin and Culver tied in one tiny rural precinct.

In the Sec of Ag race, O’Brien swept Iowa City and Coralville. Dusky took five small rural precincts mostly in the western part of the county. I have a hunch one particularly legendary local ag leader backed him (and his immediate family vote alone is enough to carry some of those townships).

Against my predictions and to my surprise there was only a 2.5% undervote for governor, in contrast to that 1998 race I oft cite with 1000 more votes for county recorder than for governor. Indeed, the top of the ticket outpaced the hot county attorney race which saw 4 percent of folks skipping out. Compare that to 26 percent bypassing the Sec of Ag race and roughly a third skipping the uncontested statewides.

Locally the Board race was interesting in that all four candidates finished first someplace. (It was a vote for two contest.) Stutsman swept Coralville and North Liberty, the Swisher-Shueyville area, and most of the “townie” parts of Iowa City. Meyers won the liberal Iowa City areas and his northeast county base, taking 79% in Newport (the other challenger, Schneider, was at 69 with the incumbents at 22 and 20.)

Mike Lehman held on to a couple rurals and three Iowa City precincts: the pattern I see among the three is older voters. Assisted housing in 6 and 8 (and in 25 where he trailed Stutsman by two votes), empty nesters in 12 (and a lot of trailer court and apartment dwellers who don’t get out in smaller elections).

John Schneider was last but was number one in several rural precincts especially in the south part of the county (a base he shared with Stutsman and Lehman). These tended to be farm-rural, rather than residential-rural. He actually ran three votes ahead of Sally Stutsman in Hills.

Not much to say in the county attorney race as Lyness won two to one or better almost everywhere. Maybanks won a couple student precincts with almost no voters – one of the realities of a June primary in a college town. He also did a little better in the north part of the county winning or tying a couple townships and getting better percentages in Don’t Tread On Me country and in his own precinct in Coralville.