Entry tags:

pittsburgh, politics: elections

election results
Locals already know this, but for anyone else who was curious about the results of the elections I wrote about yesterday... from the county returns:

MAYOR CITYWIDE
LUKE RAVENSTAHL (DEM)  .  .  .  .  .  .    43,257   63.19
MARK F DESANTIS (REP)  .  .  .  .  .  .    23,884   34.89
TONY OLIVA (LIB) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       504     .74
RYAN SCOTT (SOC) .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       548     .80
WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       260     .38

CONTROLLER CITYWIDE
MICHAEL E LAMB (DEM).  .  .  .  .  .  .    55,558   89.47
MARK RAUTERKUS (LIB).  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,448   10.38
WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .        90     .14

Ravenstahl won the mayoral election, which isn't too surprising. I had hoped his margin would be lower, but a 35% share for a Republican in a city that's 5:1 Dems:Repubs is something Ravenstahl should pay attention to.

I'm pleased that the Libertarian candidate for controller got 10% of the vote. While there's still a long way to go and Pittsburgh might be degenerate, I think the best path for third parties given the official biases against them is to win smaller races and work up from there. I'd love to see a libertarian on city council. (No, not enough to run.) Remember, until yesterday our mayor hadn't been elected as mayor.

In other news: county-wide, 26.7% of voters (over 69,000 people) used the "straight party line" option. Sigh.