Newport Votes: WE WON!

What an amazing night.

Let’s start with the two “big ones”: Duffy is known around Newport for his boats.  When he was a kid, he did what others said couldn’t be done: He powered his boat with an electric motor.  Well, our beloved Duffy has pulled off the impossible yet again, and has managed to resoundingly defeat a sitting mayor. Rush Hill was defeated by 66.8% of our city jumping on the Duffy Boat.

Measure Y, also known as “The Great Deception” was defeated by an even larger margin– while we received a whopping 14:1 mailer ratio slanted heavily to the Yes on Y side, the voters showed up at the polls and sent a very clear an powerful message that they will not be fooled again.  Measure Y was defeated 69.5% to 30.5%.

Let’s move on to the other burning questions: How did our other two current councilmembers fair?
Everyones most despised politician, Keith Curry, attempted to buy his Assembly seat by spending more than a quarter million dollars almost a half-million dollars more than his opponent– but Curry’s reputation preceded him, and he came in at just 41%. [read why we are so giddy, here].  Matt Harper crushed him with a huge win, coming in at 59%.  In a rare case of “Good vs Evil”, we could probably spend an eternity trying to figure out whether we were more excited about Curry losing or Matt winning.

Leslie Daigle, tried to oppose local water guy do-gooder Steve Sheldon– and lost handily.  She pulled in 27.7% of the vote in a four person race, while Sheldon pulled in more than twice that, at 57%.
In short: WE ALL WON, and kept our current council right where they should be.  Congratulations to us all!

So, who will be our next council members?  Let’s break out the tallies!

DISTRICT	NAME	VOTES	% OF DISTRICT
District 1: (total votes: 14,364)
	DIANE DIXON (unopposed)	14,364	100%
District 3: (total votes: 17,958)
	DUFFY DUFFIELD	11,991	66.8%
	RUSH HILL	5,967	33.2%
District 4: (total votes: 16,958)
	KEVIN MULDOON	8,539	50.4%
	TIM BROWN	6,299	37.1%
	ROY ENGLEBRECHT	2,120	12.5%
District 6: (total votes: 16,798)
	SCOTT PEOTTER	8,586	51.1%
	MIKE TOERGE	8,212	48.9%

By far, the most exhilarating race of the night was the one that Peotter took home. Initially coming in at a 4 point loss, Peotter consistently crept up in the polls over a 3 hour period, and wound up inverting his initial numbers to win at a 51.1%, winning by just 374 votes. What a close race!

An honorable mention goes to Roy Englebrecht, who spent not a single dime on his campaign, and still managed to gain the votes of one in eight voters for his race.

All and all, the voters have made themselves heard this time around.
Between the losses of ALL THREE current councilmembers, and the defeat of Measure Y we have clearly showed The Council Who Couldn’t Care that we simply will not tolerate their kind of behavior.  Our new council will be officially seated on December 9th, and we can finally breathe a collective sigh of relief.

In the words of the Four Seasons: Oh, what a night.
Can I get a high-five?

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