County Exec Race

So I have been processing the number from last week’s primary and I noticed that the numbers are much worse for Ken Ulman than even the 21.4% for Harry Dunbar might indicate. Those numbers don’t count the number of Dems who chose not to vote in the county exec race. Often this is done as a protest vote in non-competitive primaries to send a message to candidates that voters are concerned with the presumed nominee. In this case 27,295 Democrats voted in the primary with the vote breakdown being:

Harry Dunbar: 5,256

Ken Ulman: 19,295

No Vote: 2,744

This means that 8,000 Democrats (an amazingly round number) chose not to vote for Ken Ulman out of the 27,295 that made the effort to go vote last Tuesday. Doing the math that means that 29.3% chose not to vote for Ken.

If Ken doesn’t recognize the danger he faces in these numbers he is less smart than I have always thought he was. Ken needs to stop running a front porch campaign and start convincing voters he is listening to their concerns and has a record he is proud of. Lucky for Ken he and other candidates have a great opportunity to do this in the Bloggers Candidates Forum, which will be a way candidates can engage with voters directly, unfiltered by the media. All candidates’ responses will be posted in full and unedited and there is no limit on length. Any voter can then comment on those responses and post their own questions that the candidates can then answer. I hope candidates and voters take advantage of this opportunity.