In St. Louis, primary election results show a city divided
ST. LOUIS — Though last week’s primary election allowed for little suspense that Mayor Francis Slay would capture his party’s nomination, the results reflect an electorate that is nonetheless divided.
Slay captured more than 60 percent of the vote overall, but lost, save one, every ward represented by an African-American alderman. Those losses were usually by a wide margin.
A detailed tally released by the Election Board shows that, in the First Ward for instance, challenger Irene J. Smith’s home turf, just about 75 percent of voters sided with Smith. The story was the same near-by in the 27th Ward, where three out of voters also backed Smith.
Slay got a huge boost, however, from his own base, which turned out in much greater numbers than wards that favored the mayor’s opponents.
For instance, the 23rd Ward had a higher voter turnout than anywhere else in the city — and backed Slay by better than a 9-to-1 margin.
Slay also did well in the central corridor, winning both the 28th Ward and the Sixth Ward, the only ward he won with an African-American aldermen.
Smith actually won 11 out of the city’s 28 Wards. But both she and Slay, to some extent, suffer from the same electoral ailment: Their support does not extend into the others base.
Smith barely left a footprint in south St. Louis precincts. Slay didn’t fare too well in north St. Louis either, but didn’t have to — his wins elsewhere were so broad that it carried him to citywide victory.
The turnout equation — that south St. Louis supporters of the mayor continue to come out in higher numbers than any other voting bloc — suggests that while extending his appeal may be a political goal of the mayor;s, it’s not a political necessity.
Incomplete analysis.
Based on those numbers:
Slay carried two wards with majority black populations, 6 and 20. And he did very well in two others, 5 and 19. Smith carried no wards with majority white populations, and did not come close to doing so in any of them.
Slay received 28% of the mayoral votes cast in wards with black aldermen; Smith got 14% of the mayoral votes cast in wards with white aldermen.
It’s Smith, not Slay, with the problem of reaching out beyond a base.
Wasn’t turn out lower than 15 percent of the population?
It would be more accurate to say less than a third of 15% of the City are against the Mayor. Most politicians would kill for numbers like that.
Having only 5% of a City against you is pretty decent. Of course this 5% is extremely vocal.
It’s Smith, not Slay, with the problem of reaching out beyond a base.
To be very fair, I think that it would be most accurate to say that both had a problem reaching out beyond their respective bases, but that Smith had more of a problem than Slay had.
What this really says to me, however, is that Slay’s base is worth much more than Smith’s. As City Voter remarked already, turnout was less than 15%. What this election showed is that Slay appeals to a subset of folks who can be counted upon to show up at the polls even when no one else will. That is a valuable asset for a politician to possess.
City Voter, by your bass-ackwards reasoning, only 2/3 of 15% of city were for Slay. Way to move the smart dialogue forward. The reality is that 85% didn’t care, thought Slay had it won, or didn’t think the outcome would affect them. Their so thinking made is so. If same percentage as voted in Presidential had voted, Slay probably still would have won, but by less. Maida might have taken it if not the other deluded or disingenuous women in the way.
City Thinker
Irene Smith is a buffoon. She and Bill Haas ought to start their own club. It’s a mystery to me how a voter of any color could support her.
The question the results raise is “Does Maida Coleman have a broader base of support than Smith?” and will her backers come out in the April General in greater numbers than Slay’s will? Historically, the general election has been a mere formality. With relatively few recent exceptions, Mike Roberts write-in for President of the Board of Aldermen for one, the election is over the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday in March. In this case, we may have a different dynamic. Maida Coleman represented a much larger constituency than did Irene Smith. If turnout is low on the southside and Coleman can energize the northside, Saint Francis may be in trouble. Only 15% of the registered voters bothered to show up in March so it is highly probable that less than 10% will show up in April. If the northside is smart, they’ll take advantage of the historically low turnout and “give St. Louis a chance to be a great City again” by sending Franny on his way out of the door in Room 200.
The question the results raise is “Does Maida Coleman have a broader base of support than Smith?” and will her backers come out in the April General in greater numbers than Slay’s will?
I definitely agree, that is the question which these numbers raise.
Maida Coleman represented a much larger constituency than did Irene Smith.
Does she? I would not pretend to know much about the depth of her base of support. I do notice, however, that the folks I see touting her strength on these internet sites seem to be exactly the same people who were talking up Smith a month ago, and they are making exactly the same arguments in Coleman’s favor than were being made in support of Smith a little while ago. This makes me wonder whether Coleman has any more of a base of support than Smith. So far, I am seeing far more antipathy to Slay than I am seeing positive enthusiasm for Coleman. Evidently anti-Slay sentiments were not enough for Smith, so if (as I am coming to suspect) Coleman has nothing more than an anti-Slay bloc behind her, I am hard pressed to see how this is going to achieve any more for her than it achieved for Smith.
If turnout is low on the southside and Coleman can energize the northside, Saint Francis may be in trouble.
No doubt. If. That said, we just witnessed a low turnout election, and guess what - turnout was lower on the North side than on the South. Why would we expect that the turnout balance is going to be different in April than it was in March?
Only 15% of the registered voters bothered to show up in March so it is highly probable that less than 10% will show up in April.
I certainly see this as a plausible prediction.
trudaropes - i have been about kicking out slay, but I think we failed before the end of the game. We first have Irene run, she is a smart and energetic candidate, but she has no appeal beyond african-american voters voting solely on the basis of race and voters who are upset with slay (me). We get our butts handed to us 60-40. Now we are supposed to support Maida. Maida is a tainted candidate - I like her on a personal level, she is really funny and sweet, but she has filed for personal bankruptcy twice and has never followed through on any campaigns. She was going to run for Auditor, then License Collector and she couldn’t pull the trigger on either of them. Then she was going to run for Mayor but got scared and changed her mind (and her party). She seems pretty shallow. I am not a fan of Slay, but I am a Democrat and I think we need to start healing. Maida’a run is just political theater and frankly with people hurting the way they are now, I am not sure that we shouldn’t just get behind slay and work to influence him to do the right thing.
while anecdotes are not scientific, I am a south side voter who will be voting for Coleman. Many of my friends will too. None of us voted for Smith.
I don’t think Coleman will lose any of the Smith voters, because they were really anti-slay votes, not necessarily really energized by Irene. So I think Slay knows Maida posses a bigger challenge. That said, Slay will energize his base more and likely win by a similar margin. His only concern is turnout of the base, Maida needs to build and turnout a base. hard task with a month to go.
while anecdotes are not scientific, I am a south side voter who will be voting for Coleman. Many of my friends will too. None of us voted for Smith.
Sure, anecdotes are not scientific, but there are no scientific numbers at hand, so I will hardly blame you for pointing to anecdotal evidence. While we are discussing anecdotal evidence, I will mention that I have seen two Coleman signs pop up in my south side neighborhood on lawns that had no signs at all a week ago, so I suppose that I have some limited reason to believe that Coleman will get votes that Smith did not (on the assumption that those lawns had no Smith sign because they were not voting for Smith). On the other hand, I have also seen Slay signs spring up on other lawns that had no signs during the primary, which (by the same reasoning applied above) would indicate that Slay may attract votes in the general that were not motivated to enough to care in the primary.
I think Slay knows Maida poses a bigger challenge.
You are probably right about that. I doubt that she will win, but she probably does pose a bigger challenge than did Smith. If she were really serious about winning, however, she should have run in the primary - stalking-horse or no. Winning as an independent candidate in the general is a very steep uphill climb, and I doubt that she is really up to the challenge.