Bob Stacey concedes, Tom Hughes is your new Metro president (Update x7)


Bob Stacey concedes; Tom Hughes is the new President of Metro.

Thanks to Doug K in the comments. Bob Stacey has conceded the race to Tom Hughes. It’s over.

Discuss.


UPDATE 6: Bob Stacey does better today, netting almost 100 votes, but still trails Tom Hughes by 1017 votes.

County Tom Hughes Bob Stacey Other (write-in)
Clackamas 38,418 33,118 444
Multnomah 86,506 116,010 1808
Washington 72,289 47,068 892
Totals 197,213 196,196 3144

UPDATE 5: Tim Hibbits of the Portland Tribune has called the race for Hughes. Hat tip to RA Fontes in the comments.

UPDATE 3 & 4: 11/10/10 results

Washington County updates its results (3:00). Multnomah County updates its results (4:30).

County Tom Hughes Bob Stacey Other (write-in)
Clackamas 38,346 33,058 336
Multnomah 86,365 115,751 1803
Washington 72,230 47,026 892
Totals 196,941 195,835 3141

Hughes widens his lead to 1106 votes. He gained several votes from Washington County, though Stacey offset this somewhat with a net gain of 16 from Multnomah. Don’t know if Clackamas County will publish any updates today.

(Note: See UPDATE below).

It’s been nearly a week since the general election. We know who the next governor of Oregon will be (Kitz), and whether or not TriMet will have some extra money to play with (no). What we don’t know, still, is who the next Metro president will be.

As of yesterday, the race stood as follows:

County Tom Hughes Bob Stacey Other (write-in)
Clackamas 38,346 33,058 336
Multnomah 85,828 115,208 1784
Washington 72,074 46,917 889
Totals 196,248 195,183 3119

As you can see, Hughes as a small lead (of about 1000 votes, or about 0.25% of the electorate); but so far, no election analysts have called the race; nor has either of the candidates conceded. Multnomah County, whose vote has favored Stacey, is still counting ballots (1000 ballots were added to the total yesterday); whether there are enough remaining votes to permit Stacey to overtake Hughes is an open question.

Actually, two things surprise me: 1) That Clackamas County is so close, given that is probably the “reddest” county within Metro’s boundary, and the county which most decisively voted no on Measure 26-119; and 2) that Tom Hughes is doing as well as he is in Multnomah County. It’s not surprising that Hughes is dominating in Washington County, where he hails from.

It’s also interesting to note that like the governor’s race; the “other” vote (all write-ins, as no other candidate was listed on the ballot) will likely exceed the margin of victory between the two leading candidates. Should there be a recount, this may complicate things, as these write-in ballots may need to be scrutinized more carefully.

This article will be updated as new information comes in.

UPDATE:

Today’s release of updated Multnomah County numbers does not bode well for Bob Stacey.

County Tom Hughes Bob Stacey Other (write-in)
Clackamas 38,346 33,058 336
Multnomah 86,251 115,621 1799
Washington 72,074 46,917 889
Totals 196,671 195,596 3134

Today, 423 more votes for Hughes were tabluated, vs 413 for Stacey–resulting in Tom Hughes increasing his lead by 10 votes. Stacey now has an overall deficit of 1048 votes. Neither Washington nor Clackamas counties have updated their ballot counts as of this afternoon. Washington County indicates their next update will be tomorrow (the 10th); Clackamas County has not indicated when the next update (if any) will be published.

Given that Multnomah County is supposedly “Stacey territory”, his losing ten votes in the county is not a good sign for his candidacy. It’s not known how many ballots remain–at this point, the county is likely hand-investigating overvotes and undervotes to see if voter intent can be discerned, a process which explains the slow pace. Election results need to be certified by the 22nd.

One more bit of info. oregonlive’s tabulation gives Hughes a total of 196,671 votes vs 195,596 for Stacey; I’m not sure where the additional 27 votes come from. Still not good for Stacey.

UPDATE 2:

I discovered the source of the discrepancy; I had written down 72,047 votes for Hughes in Washington County, the correct total is 72,074. The above charts are now updated and agree with oregonlive’s tabulation.


8 responses to “Bob Stacey concedes, Tom Hughes is your new Metro president (Update x7)”

  1. Given that Tom did not respond to Portland Transport’s questionnaire in the primary, or the one from BTA in the general election, I think we need a concerted effort to educate him on our perspective on transportation!

  2. Given that Tom did not respond to Portland Transport’s questionnaire in the primary, or the one from BTA in the general election…

    Add this to the failure of 26-119, and I have a strange feeling this decade could represent a new “dark age” for anything but SOV-centric development and employment in the Portland Metro Area. I hope I’m wrong.

  3. I’m not that pessimistic. I served with Tom on MPAC and watched him think through issues. I’m optimistic that when sufficiently educated to the issues of the core of the region (as opposed to the edge where he served as a mayor) he’ll get to the right answers.

    He might also teach us a thing or two about the right answers for the edge :-)

  4. One thing to remember about Hughes… although I voted for Stacey (it was one of the last major issues I made up my mind about), it’s not as though he’s an arch-conservative or something. He’s a fairly liberal politician, one who got the backing of a big chunk of the state Democratic establishment–he’s just to the right of Bob Stacey.

    As someone who lives kinda in between the core and the edge (in Beaverton), better strategies for dealing with “edge” issues are definitely needed. My long-term suspicion is that the anti-transit attitudes in the suburbs will soften if and when gas gets north of $5/gallon–and that expensive gas might actually open up opportunities for reform which are political non-starter today (such as converting more traffic lanes to exclusive-transit use). But 2/3 of the 1.5 million Oregonians in the metro area don’t live in the City of Portland, so it shouldn’t be surprising or remarkable that a suburban politician is soon to be head of Metro. Indeed, it’s interesting that it’s taken this long.

  5. Is this resolved, finally? Boy, this election has had some cliffhangers—including, IMO, the governor’s race, since the Constitutionalist and Libertarian candidates could have conceivably deprived Chris Dudley of enough votes to win.

    My question to Hughes, though, would be how much will new Silicon Forest expansion contribute to overall METRO growth in the next few decades? Intel has some big plans and previously that has been the precursor of other development. So I am going to stick with the view that the bulk of METRO growth will be in the Beaverton/Hillsboro area and that we need to evaluate transportation infrastructure in that area.

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