Iowa City Takes Progressive Turn

Iowa City Takes Progressive Turn

It's been lost in the excitement of the 21 Bar vote, but last night the Iowa City Council took a definite progressive turn.

Matt Hayek is clearly several steps to the left of the retired Bob Elliott, and progressive Mike Wright is a sea change from the defeated Dee Vanderhoef.

Hayek won virtually by by acclimation, carrying every single precinct. The interesting story is massive undervoting -- that's electionese for skipping a race -- especially in the student-heavy, 21 bar motivated absentee vote. Despite the No On 21/Hayek/Terry Smith campus campaign, Wright came out of the absentees with less than a 200 vote deficit to Smith, and easily made that up at the polls to beat Smith by about 500.

Also interesting, some of Smith and Wright's strongest precincts backed them despite their 21 bar stand. Mike's hot spots were, as expected, progressive precincts 18 and 21, which he represented on neighborhood associations and where he topped 50%. But 21 was one of the half-dozen election day precincts that voted no on 21 bars (the opponents voted early, see below) and 18 was a weak yes precinct. Terry Smith was strongest in east side precincts 6, 16 and 25, the strongest Yes precincts, and also in 14. The 21 issue cut across typical Iowa City lefty/righty lines, and voters made the distinction.

There's really not much bright news for dead-last Dee Vanderhoef. She edged up into the upper 30s in near west side precincts 2 and 9 but that's about it. First Iowa city incumbent to lose in a general election since Dean Thornberry in 1999.

Regenia Bailey (unopposed) is the first District C incumbent re-elected since Randy Larson in 1991. (The history: Larson resigns in 1993, Bruno Pigott wins short term, loses to Thornberry in 1999. Irv Pfab upsets Dean in `99, Regeinia knocks Pfab off in the 103 primary.) And Bikin' Mayor Ross Wilburn tops the 10,000 vote mark to become the top Iowa City vote-getter ever.

As for the bar vote, the 74% No absentee overcame the 57% Yes election day vote. Most of the students voted early but No still carried the day in some of the student and downtown precincts - 3, 5, 11, 19, and 20, plus near-downtown 21 and, surprisingly, my own precinct 10.

The Yes forces were strongest in far from campus places like precinct 8 on the southwest side and 16, 25 and 6 on the east.

Not much to report on the police review board as it won so big everywhere that trends are buried in the landslide. Even working class Tory precinct 12 on the southeast side was at 65%, and the student and lefty areas reported North Korean margins like 87% in precinct 21.

The 15,000+ turnout smashed the old record of 13,000+ from two years ago, which has smashed the ancient record of 11,000 from 1977.

Out in Coralville, Mitch Gross won five of six precincts for a solid 250 vote win. It was a squeaker between incumbents John Weihe and Jean Schnake for the second slot. The dynamic was newcomer vs. incumbents, and it came down to which incumbent had slightly more friends and neighbors. In most areas, the two were within a few votes of each other, butvWeihe won precinct 6 (far north) by 21 votes and that was more than his 11 vote victory margin.

Around the county: Hills topped the turnout at 65% (governor level) to vote No on city water. Tiffin tossed out perpetual mayor Glenn Potter for Royce Phillips, and three newcomers with close to each other vote totals carried North Liberty over James Moody.