SOME NUMBERS

For you political junkies, here are some numbers. It doesn't include the absentees and we're too lazy to care.

Troy City Council

As election results rolled in, the Troy Republicans were as jittery as an Aretakis client in a room full of bishops. In the end, they didn't have too much to worry about.

District 1

Wojcik defeated Doran in District 1 without breaking a sweat. Did anyone seriously think Doran would win? The people of District 1 definitely deserve Mark Wojcik. Interestingly, the number of people voting for Wojcik actually fell. So did the number voting for the Democrat. Wojcik increased his margin by 3%.

2003 - Wojcik 1124 (56%), Hunziker-Luce 880 (44%)
2005 - Wojcik 1027 (59%), Doran 703 (41%)


District 2

The Carr-McGrath race was close, 52% - 48%. Too bad Mahoney didn't stay in the game. If a mere 25 votes had switched, Carr would have won. That, despite McGrath having three lines. Again, the vote for the Republican candidate was down from 2003 (Foy, 661) to 639. Unfortunately, for Ms. Carr, the Democratic vote was down from 2003 by more than 100.


District 3

In District 3, Peter Ryan defeated incumbent Art Judge. A major victory for the Democrats. Defeating an incumbent is no small feat. Less than 100 votes separated the two. Judge had a significant drop in support, over 400 less votes than in 2003. Conversely, the Democratic candidate got almost 200 more votes this year than in 2003.

2003 - Judge 1169 (64.8%) - Blakeborough 635 (35.2%)
2005 - Judge 768 (48%) - Ryan 831 (52%)


District 4

Dunne administered an old-fashioned ass-kicking to Pascarell, despite the GOP mounting an ugly, nasty slanderous campaign. Guess that didn't get them very far. Dunne lost a few votes from 2003 but the Republicans lost twice as many. Dunne's margin increased by 3%

2003 - Dunne 483 (58%) - Collington 348 (42%)
2005 - Dunne 457 (61%) - Pascarell 292 (39%)


District 5

Krogh easily defeated Lamiano. Krogh lost over two hundred votes from his previous showing.

2003 - Krogh 1179 (57%) - Lennon 886 (43%)
2005 - Krogh 958 (53.7%) - Lamiano 824 (46.3%)


District 6

Collier trounced newcomer Hockler, running away with the election. Collier didn't seem to gain much support in the last four years. However, given the dismal showing by her opponents, she didn't need it.

2003 - Collier 844 (60.6%) - Leahy 548 (39.4%)
2005 - Collier 867 ( 59.7%) - Hockler 585 (40.3%)


Conclusions

We learned a lot from these numbers. We learned that voter turnout was down, we learned that District 6 was the only District were voter turnout was up and we finally learned what that orange 'M+' button on the calculator is used for.

We give the Republicans a -15. What does that mean? Glad you asked. It means that overall, the Republicans lost 15% points since the last election. The downside is, most of that was in one election, District 3, where Judge took a 16% winning margin and turned it into a 4 point loss. Or maybe not. Who the hell knows, We just made that up.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the Democrats get a 6. They defeated an incumbent in District 3 and a Democrat had the biggest winning margin (Dunne at 61%). In the At-Large race, which we'll discuss in another post, Campana knocked off Armet. A solid showing, a step forward, hence the 6 out of 10.

What does turnout say? It could mean voters were not enthusiatic about the incumbents and didn't go out to vote for them. It could mean, voters thought the incumbents would win easily and didn't go out to vote for them. It could mean some really good reruns were on television.

For Democrats, District 4 is a lock. They have strength in District 3 and are competitive in District 5. District 5 should be a target in '07. Time will tell in District 2.