Fun with Numbers - CR Mayoral Election Results

Yeah, I'm looking through all the numbered columns and maps generated by Tuesday's city election. And yeah, I think it's fun. What of it?

Mayor Ron Corbett won in a landslide, which helps make the two precincts won by his challenger, Greg Hughes, stick out like very sore thumbs.

One is pictured above, Cedar Rapids Precinct 34, where Hughes won 133-128 over Corbett. The precinct includes the site of the proposed Cedar Crossing casino strongly backed by the mayor and Kingston Village, the west side downtown business district the city is working to revive and develop. So that's thanks for ya.

The other precinct Corbett lost is CR 9 on the city's northeast side, where Hughes beat the mayor 164-150. CR 9 also turned down the local-option sales tax extension measure 193-136, it's widest margin of defeat among the five metro precincts where the tax measure failed.

The problem for Hughes. aside from the fact he won only two of 44 precincts, is that only 13.29 percent of voters turned out in CR 34, voting at the Linn County Election Depot, and just 17.7 percent voted in CR 9, voting at St. Pius X Catholic Church.

Meanwhile, two precincts that battled for the high turnout title went heavily for Corbett.

The champion, CR 24, a pretty affluent southeast side precinct that votes at Bethany Lutheran Church and includes Brucemore, saw 34.66 percent turnout. And it was one of three precincts where Corbett's vote topped 80 percent. He walloped Hughes in CR 24 644-122, or roughly 83-17.

The turnout runner-up was CR 12 on the northeast side, east of Edgwood Road and south of 42nd Street voting at Oakland Church of the Nazarene. Turnout there hit 34.46 percent, and Corbett again topped 80 percent of the vote, winning 649-151.

Those two precincts also delivered some of the biggest support for the sales tax. It passed 80-20 in CR 24 and 73-27 in CR 12.

The lowest turnout was in CR 22, voting at First Presbyterian and including parts of downtown, where just 73 of 1,858 registered voters cast ballots. That's 3.93 percent.