InShaw’s post election commentary

Oh good, that’s now over with.
Well the main show for our little corner of DC was the 2C02 race between incumbent Leroy Thorpe and his challenger Kevin Chapple. According the the preliminary election results (unofficial count) put out by the DC Board of Elections Kevin won by 18 votes. 18 people made the difference, which is why I’m going to hold any enthusiasm for when the official results are in. In 2002, according to the Board’s election data, Thorpe was challenged by Randy Wells and it was also a close race. Wells got 211 votes (45.87%) of the vote, 31 votes short of Thorpe’s 242 (52.61%). So the neighborhood was divided, and it wasn’t like 1998 when Thorpe had 75% of the vote over Steve Donkin’s 22%. The neighborhood is changing, and if the Chapple victory is real, then that change has been reflected in the vote. The real fun will be when the 2010 census is done so we can see the actual change.
Alex Padro kept his 2C01 seat with 70.08% of the vote, or 253 votes over Mary Sutherland’s 102. It seems people are happy with Alex, and with a large majority of the vote I feel safe in saying that.
Also holding a majority was incumbent Doris Brooks with 291 votes over John Tinpe’s 126. I guess the people of 2C03 are happy with their leadership or very unwilling to try the unknown.
Babs Curtis had 138 votes over challenger Rich Rodgers’ 103. Thirty five people made a difference there.
So in 2C there are many of the same faces, except one (provided there aren’t a lot of absentee votes out there to change it). The Single Member District races tend not to get a lot of press because they are so small. The Washington Post has the Fenty results (big surprise) smack dab in the middle, and nothing, nothing about the SMD races anywhere in the paper, maybe it will appear in the Thursday District section. It was great that the Washington City Paper gave some ink, and I think that made a difference.
Over on the other side of New Jersey Ave NW, there was a huge upset. Newcomers all over the place. But I’ll give it its own post later.