March 7, 2002
Wormhoudt, Primack plan November strategiesBy HEATHER BOERNER A day after the primary election, Mardi Wormhoudt and Mark Primack were planning different strategies for the Third District supervisorial runoff in November. But both agreed on one thing. "November will be a very different race," said Wormhoudt, who has held the seat on the county Board of Supervisors for eight years. With third-place finisher Michael Schmidt out of the picture, the race could split differently Nov. 5. On Tuesday, Wormhoudt fell shy of the majority vote needed to win the race outright, finishing with 47 percent of the vote. Primack, a Santa Cruz City Councilman, followed with 39 percent. Schmidt, former head of the Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce, finished third with 13 percent. The figures do not include uncounted absentee votes, but those are not expected to change the outcome. Schmidt said Wednesday he is throwing his support to Primack. "I’m at his disposal," said Schmidt, who is heading to Hawaii for some post-campaign recovery. But whether those voters will make the jump to Primack’s camp is uncertain, and Schmidt predicted a tough campaign. "(Primack) will have his hands full," said Schmidt, referring to Wormhoudt’s lofty status among local liberals and the recent mailer she sent to district residents calling Primack, who is an architect, a developer. A Sentinel analysis of the election returns revealed Wormhoudt won a dozen precincts by at least 50 votes, while Primack won only three by the same margin. Primack’s support was on the far Westside, where he lives, and along High Street. Wormhoudt had support on the Westside, Eastside, downtown and along the county’s North Coast. The Third District covers the city of Santa Cruz and the towns of Davenport and Bonny Doon. Wormhoudt also won UC Santa Cruz outright, garnering about two-thirds of the votes cast there. UCSC has been a traditional Wormhoudt stronghold, and few Santa Cruz area elections have been won in the past decade without the student vote. Still, Primack said he’s where he wants to be heading into the general election. He felt he showed remarkably well for entering the race only in December. He also noted he won his City Council seat a year ago without significant student support. Still, he said he’s planning to focus much of his campaigning over the next eight months on university students, as well as former Schmidt backers. "This is where we’d hoped I would be (after the primary), with Mardi less than 48 percent and me hovering around 40," Primack said. "We’re looking at the precincts by combining my votes with Mike’s. And if you do that, it shows me winning throughout the district." If that happened, Primack would win the seat by about 500 votes. But the general election will bring out a different kind of voter, Wormhoudt predicted, saying that will help her. Primary elections, especially in years when there’s no presidential candidate, draw few voters, and the voters who do show tend to their party’s extremes. Wormhoudt said the thinks the anti-utility-tax Measure L brought a large number of conservatives to the polls, and that helped her opponents. In a general election free of anti-tax measures and in which liberals turn out to vote in the governor’s race, she expects to fair better. However, some Santa Cruz activists are agitating to get an anti-utility-tax measure on the November ballot. The county’s utility tax was repealed by voters Tuesday. Contact Heather Boerner at hboerner@santa-cruz.com.
How
they voted WORMHOUDT: UC Santa Cruz; Davenport; Westside, Garfield Park; Westside, Garfield Park; Downtown, Calvary Church; Downtown, Louden Nelson, Downtown, Dakota Street; Beach Hill, Sunshine Villa; Eastside Cayuga Street; Eastside, Seabright Avenue; Eastside, La Posada; Eastside, Broadway. PRIMACK: Westside, Mission Street extension; Westside, High Street; Westside, High Street. Source: Santa Cruz County Elections Department |
