I am absolutely fascinated by how the slow trickle of the election results revealing how weak of a candidate, she is bleeding margin every time a new batch of results come in:
At this point we’re just waiting to see if Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft can get to 60% by the time all of the votes are counted but we may not have that many left (thoughts Mike McMahon)? This was a huge batch and simply improved on Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft’s last numbers:
If 2022 is like 2018 and we have only 31K votes there is absolutely no room for Trish Spencer to catch Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft at all. None. Not even if she received ALL of the remaining votes. It now just a question of how much does she lose by.
But, as outgoing Councilmember John Knox White pointed out on Twitter, the numbers being posted by Trish Spencer are on par with how she has performed over the years. Excluding the year she won against Marie Gilmore by 124 votes, she seems to have a ceiling of support in Alameda of around 35%.
In a crowded field of candidates in a City Council race 35% is more than sufficient to get elected:
Which is why for 2024 folks who want to prevent a Trish Spencer re-election and ensure that Malia Vella’s seat is filled by a progressive should start working now to ensure there is not too many candidates with similar policies dividing the vote. There should be exactly two, working in tandem to center their messaging. And maybe it’s the case that Trish Spencer will always get 35% of the vote regardless of her policies and her positions and therefore Alameda’s will be stuck with her until she terms out of the City Council, but what the performance from Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft shows both in in 2018 and this year is that Trish Spencer is not nearly as popular as — at least — I thought she was.
Blogging Bayport Alameda 
Little known fact: once a result crosses 59%, council can throw it out and install the loser, just like with Z.
Comment by Trish still has a chance! — November 18, 2022 @ 7:05 am
Is someone salty that their exclusionary housing ordinance is a road block to a certified housing element and the majority of City Council people used their majority to ensure that Alameda didn’t end up like Santa Monica on the end of a non-compliant housing element and facing down 4000 units of Builder’s remedy?
Comment by Lauren Do — November 18, 2022 @ 9:04 am
Nah, just salty that it’s anti democratic for 3 people who never got 59.94% to kill what 25,000 people voted for by 59.94%.
Salty that council kills a charter amendment with 3 votes. WTF do we have a charter for if council can routinely violate it without penalty?
Comment by Some people still care about democracy — November 18, 2022 @ 9:38 am
I remember some wise person on here saying something along the lines of “if you have 3 votes then use it and don’t complain about people in the minority not stepping up.”
I suppose the distinction is that when there is something in the charter which is pre-empted by State law the only reasonable thing to do is to not violate state law but, I guess, next time run better candidates who are willing to thumb their nose at the State of California.
Comment by Lauren Do — November 18, 2022 @ 10:42 am
Ashcraft’s victory is not that important. The most important change is that JKW is gone and with him, the worst of progressive policies and ritualized virtue signaling and political payoffs. He was the ringleader in brow-beating Ashcraft into being the swing vote and overriding the clear will of the people on rent control, over development and financing our local homeless industrial complex which only manages to increase the number of homeless, drug addicts and petty criminals in our town.
Comment by Spin Diesel — November 18, 2022 @ 1:03 pm
You left out pompous & self righteous, and anti-police during a crime wave, but the rest of it, yeah.
Comment by Dr. X — November 18, 2022 @ 1:09 pm
Lol at you guys acting like JKW was defeated at the ballot box when he chose not to run again because when you actually do work and are effective it’s time consuming and soul sucking. Particularly if you have a day job.
Unlike some seat warmers who we’re lucky if they stop playing minesweeper for like two seconds to pay attention to do policy making.
Comment by Lauren Do — November 18, 2022 @ 2:29 pm
Okay, Matt.
Comment by Trish Is Trash — November 18, 2022 @ 3:50 pm
He’s leaving cuz he’s butthurt that instead of every Alamedian lining up to kiss his perfect all knowing ass, some people actually DISAGREED with him.
Comment by Politics is no place for thin skins — November 18, 2022 @ 4:08 pm
It’s weird that you’re reducing JKW to only his body part even if you did say it was “perfect.” We all have our kinks. You do you.
Comment by Lauren Do — November 18, 2022 @ 4:11 pm
Lauren you’re just another blind progressive with a perfectly matching snarky online persona. JKW will move out of Alameda within the next couple of years. He’s not a native, wasn’t ever here for the long term, never had the best interests of the city at heart, only his virtue signaling, slow street and bike seat constituency. Progressives are done.
Comment by Dr.X Fan — November 18, 2022 @ 5:29 pm
ACAB includes Dr. X
Comment by Rod — November 18, 2022 @ 9:17 pm
Ashcraft annihilates Trish Spencer 60% to 35%. “Progressives are done.” Lol.
In case you haven’t noticed, progressives have completely taken over this once all-Republican military town and have had council majority for the past decade. Bike trails and microbrews everywhere and Article 26 is dead.
Comment by JRB — November 19, 2022 @ 9:08 am
Trish is Trash. She’s done. If you’re a nimby, this week has got to sting. 2-to-1 Trish Spencer loss and the quiet death of Article 26. What a great week.
Comment by Trumpers for Trish — November 18, 2022 @ 7:06 am
If we had ranked choice voting like all our neighboring cities, we wouldn’t need to consolidate and reduce the number of candidates just to get some progressives elected. I want to see the field of candidates expanded, not reduced!
Comment by therealdanwood — November 18, 2022 @ 8:07 am
I would have liked ranked-choice for this election, but it’s also how Oakland ended up with Jean Quan.
Comment by LaurelRez — November 18, 2022 @ 8:17 am
The local RCV discourse is interesting. Considering that Black electeds deemed as “over represented” in these cities—with little analysis of power and demographic changes—i am curious how groups like LWVA and others who seek this reform understand “equity” in our local and historical contexts.
The 2018 FairVote report is interesting start.
Comment by Rasheed — November 18, 2022 @ 9:03 am
Ranked Choice voting is a great way to end up with a crop of mediocre, plain vanilla candidates. It also pushes out wacko fringe candidates like Trish Spencer, who can never crack 35%. I think what you’re looking for is district elections. Fresh, upstart candidates would not need to wage expensive citywide elections when they only need to work their own neighborhood.
Comment by JRB — November 18, 2022 @ 9:05 am
Similarly, some of the District elections discourse is interesting. In the early 1990s, Clayton Guyton and other West End residents called for District elections. At that time, Alameda had more* concentrated racial and economic segregation of Black people especially. There seemed to be little support then.
How the districts would be devised and resource allocation would be interesting too.
Comment by Rasheed — November 19, 2022 @ 6:56 am
I think if we do a deep dive on the precinct level data we would see candidates who do well on, say, Bay Farm, would not do so well in the neighborhood they live in. Just a quick and dirty pull from 2020 shows that Trish Spencer did the best in Bay Farm where she does not live. Her precinct that she lives in seemed to have changed names but if it’s the one I think it is did not do that well there. District elections may eliminate some of the more conservative City Council candidates but I’d have to look at more numbers before confidently stating that.
Comment by Lauren Do — November 19, 2022 @ 8:22 am
Follow up image:
Comment by Lauren Do — November 19, 2022 @ 8:27 am
Based on my read of ROV, 29549 Alameda voters had ballots received by the ROV. As of last night 25600 voted in the Mayor race, In 2018 a similar number of Alameda voters voted in the Mayor with 3000 choosing not to vote for Mayor. So if history holds than there is maybe 1000 votes left to be processed. However I would posit those ballots are not likely to follow the trend of the past week. Ballot day voting precentage tend to show up in the last batch of results.
Comment by Mike McMahon — November 18, 2022 @ 10:05 am
Thanks for these updates, but man you called the Pamela Price race far too early.
Comment by Nate Silver — November 18, 2022 @ 3:52 pm
One more update …. MEA up to 59.28% guessing she won’t get to 60%, but man it would be nice.
Gotta say I love all the fake name posts about JKW. They will never acknowledge he did his home work, actually read the materials and followed along from meeting to meeting to meeting. And he would meet with reasonable people to discuss issues, regardless of if they supported his view.
Comment by Ron Mooney — November 18, 2022 @ 7:34 pm
He’s about 1,000 times more intelligent than these sub-standard kooks.
Comment by John Gilles — November 19, 2022 @ 9:29 pm
Of course John is a bright fellow. His tragic flaw is his overarching need to be lauded as The Smartest Man in the Room.
Knowing stats is intelligence.
Not being a condescending asshole as you demand people upend their city is wisdom.
Comment by Dr X — November 20, 2022 @ 9:32 am