Cobb County had a runoff election yesterday. Two important ones, actually: Commission Chair and District 4 Commissioner. Here are the results:
Commission Chair
Tim Lee 52.37% 14,309
Bill Byrne 47.63% 13,014
District 4 Commissioner
Lisa Cupid 75.62% 3,065
Woody Thompson 24.38% 988
Tim Lee (the incumbent commissioner) squeaked by with a 1,300 vote margin. Woody Thompson (the incumbent) got hammered. Ouch.
I have no idea what was going on in District 4. That’s the entirely other side of the county from me, however Commission Chair was something I followed closely because Bill Byrne is a former Chairman who espouses Agenda 21 nutjobiness and is generally crazy.
It’s depressing to me that so many people will come out and vote against Tim Lee and for Bill Byrne. The only reason that the vote went like this is because of taxes, taxes, taxes. There wasn’t any other issue in the campaign. But, instead of picking someone reasonable in the primary, they picked a conspiracy theorist. Good job, Cobb Countians. Thankfully, we didn’t pick him in the end.
It’s more interesting about the relative numbers of voters turning out. Here are the results from the primary elections last month.
Mike Boyce 17,042 23.29%
Bill Byrne 19,403 26.52%
Tim Lee (I) 29,055 39.71%
Larry Savage 7,666 10.48%
Total turnout vote for Commissioner was 73,166. Turnout for the runoff was 37% of that. Ouch.
LISA CUPID 4,334 39.51%
MONICA DELANCY 789 7.19%
RUTH E. NEGRON 419 3.82%
MICHAEL RHETT 1,280 11.67%
CONNIE TAYLOR 1,201 10.95%
WOODY THOMPSON (I) 2,945 26.85%
Total turnout for District 4 Commissioner was 10,968. Turnout for the runoff was again 37%. Double ouch. What’s even worse in this district race was that the incumbent took 40% of the vote in the primary but only 24% in the runoff. Triple ouch.
Commissioner Lee had a 59% share of the vote against Bill Byrne in the primary, but only a 52% in the runoff. Obviously, there were lots of people just plain voting against him, rather than for Byrne.
So now it’s on to November. Commission Chairperson Tim Lee is unopposed in November, so he’s in. I’m not aware if Lisa Cupid has a Republican challenger for this district. As I said, I haven’t been following that race.
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