Will Mayor Walkup run again?
by Carolyn Classen on Nov. 10, 2010, under Life, PoliticsRepublican Mayor Robert Walkup is in his 3rd term as Mayor of a largely Democratic city (five of the six Councilmembers are Democrats) and is up for re-election in November, 2011. Here are the past election results for Mayor:
November, 2007 General election:
Mayor Walkup (R) 45,543 71.20%
Dave Croteau (G) 17,962 28.08%
November, 2003 General election:
Mayor Walkup (R) 38,364 49.51%
Tom Volgy (D) 36,990 47.73 % (former Mayor)
Kimberly Swanson (L) 2,071 2.67%
November, 1999 General election:
Robert Walkup (R) 46,258 53.68%
Molly McKasson (D) 33,999 39.45% (former Ward 6 Councilwoman)
Ed Kahn (L) 4,834 5.61%
Will Mayor Walkup run again? He faced token opposition in November 2007 from Green Party candidate Dave Croteau (since no Democrat ran). But Mayor Walkup had a close race in November 2003 with Democratic former Tucson Mayor Tom Volgy, winning by only 1,374 votes, 1.78 percentage point spread. Total votes cast in that race were 77,492. I called & sent an email to the Mayor’s office about whether he will run for re-election, but no reply yet.
Over in Ward 2 I heard from former candidate Republican Lori Oien that she is not thinking of challenging newly appointed Democrat Councilmember Paul Cunningham. He was appointed on May 4, 2010 .
And Republican Mike Jenkins is likely to take on Democrat Councilmember Shirley Scott again in Ward 4, though he lost to her by 24.66 percentage points seven years ago in Nov. 2003. In November 2007 Republican Dan Spahr lost to Shirley by a large margin as well (32.36 percentage points), and he told me recently at Oktoberfest that he won’t run again.
But then Shirley may opt out of a 5th term and run for Mayor instead. I spoke to her recently and she said she is “keeping her options open”, especially since the City of Tucson lawsuit about non-partisan/ward only elections has not been resolved. Incidentally, there has never been a woman Mayor in the City of Tucson.
Other Mayoral hopefuls may be Tucson attorney Jonathan Rothschild and 2 term Ward 3 Councilmember Karin Uhlich, whose aide Miguel Ortega (former Chief of Staff) just lost his bid for TUSD Governing Board. And first term Ward 6 Councilmember Steve Kozachik‘s name is being circulated on the Republican side, especially after his strong leadership role against the proposed Rio Nuevo hotel downtown.
Councilmembers in Ward 1, 2, 4 and the Mayor are up for re-election in 2011.
CITY OF TUCSON WARD 1 20,829/ 5,699/ 370/ 121/ 11,391/ 38,410
CITY OF TUCSON WARD 2 17,311/ 17,000/ 375/ 87/ 13,385/ 48,158
CITY OF TUCSON WARD 3 14,073/ 6,189/ 381/ 218/ 9,976/ 30,837
CITY OF TUCSON WARD 4 15,452/ 15,950/ 337/ 66/ 14,036/ 45,841
CITY OF TUCSON WARD 5 15,563/ 3,948/ 298/ 78/ 9,508/ 29,395
CITY OF TUCSON WARD 6 18,066/ 8,038/ 444/ 296/ 10,934/ 37,778
(Latest Ward registered voter totals, from Pima County Recorder’s Office in columns: Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Green, Others, total registered voters in last column.) Note that in Wards 2 and 4 the Democrat and Republican voter #s are about the same now, unlike Ward 1, which is heavily Democrat.
Stay tuned. Applicants for these elected offices can now take out nomination papers as early as November 24, so we’ll know more after that date.
UPDATE 11/16/10: Republican Ron Asta considering a run for Mayor (click here).
Mayor Bob Walkup
2/22/11 UPDATE: Mayor Walkup will not seek re-election to a 4th term:
http://tucsoncitizen.com/community/2011/02/22/mayor-walkup-to-announce-he-will-not-run-for-re-election-in-his-state-of-the-city-address-today/
