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Election 2019 – Nothing Unusual at All … Locally
Sojourner’s Truth Staff
Nothing unusual happened
locally on Election Day 2019 – incumbents won, Democrats
won, levies won. It was an off- off-year election, and the
results locally were not nearly so impactful as they were in
other parts of the country, such as Kentucky, Virginia and
Pennsylvania.
Toledo City Council
district races captured most of the attention. In District
1, incumbent Tyrone Riley held serve against a young
upstart, Shaun Strong.
Riley captured 58.06
percent of the votes in his contest, a sizeable margin,
given the fact that his party, the Lucas County Democrats,
declined to endorse him.
Nevertheless, we will be
hearing more from Strong in the future – young, yes, but
with some well-formulated ideas.
Riley begins his third and
final term as a district councilman with a defined plan of
action. He says that he intends to: 1. Assist in the
establishment of projects and programs for the use of
Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds; 2. Address
how the residential street repair is funded; 3. Assist in
the creation and development of job training and programs
and projects and 4. Lay the foundation for individuals
interested in getting involved in local politics.1.
In District 4, incumbent
Yvonne Harper easily outdistanced her challenger, a more
seasoned upstart, former Councilwoman June Boyd, by taking
74.13 percent of the votes, the highest percentage for a
victor this year.
And in District 5, the
Democrats, already firmly in charge of every segment of
local elected office, flipped a seat, as incumbent
Republican Tom Waniewski stepped down, and Democrat Sam
Melden tallied 62.46 percent of the votes against Tom Names.
Incumbents Matt Cherry,
also Council president, and Chris Delaney, won in Districts
2 and 6, respectively. Both are Democrats.
In District 3, Democrat
Theresa Gadus appears to have won her contest against
Republican Glen Cook by a mere 20 votes … so far. She will
be replacing the retiring Peter Ujvagi if the results hold.
Incumbent Judge Josh
Lanzinger topped challenger Tom Puffenberger to retain his
seat on the Toledo Municipal Court.
And long-time Toledo
Municipal Clerk of Court, Vallie Bowman English skunked her
opponent … actually she didn’t have an opponent. Her first
race, in 2003, against Republican Theresa M. Gabriel, was
the only meaningful contest in her subsequent years on the
ballot as the incumbent.
If local elected races
were pretty much of a ho-hum affair, there was certainly
plenty of excitement elsewhere around the country,
particularly in Kentucky and Virginia. In Kentucky, the
incumbent Republican Governor Matt Bevin lost a close race
to Democratic challenger Andy Beshear, a race in which Bevin
tried to run into a referendum on national politics and
received help from the president and vice president.
“This is a blue state,”
proclaimed Governor Ralph Northam exultantly the day after
his fellow Democrats regained control of both houses of the
Virginia state legislature for the first time in 26 years.
That change in control is accompanied by some big plans for
legislation in the immediate future for the now-blue state
neighboring the White House.
Virginians can expect to
see a number of gun control measures enacted – as many as
eight are on the Democrats’ wish list. In addition, the Dems
will be pushing forward bills increasing the minimum wage
and decreasing abortion restrictions. Virginia is now
expected to be the 38th state – the final
necessary vote – to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment,
thereby ending a battle that has been raging since the early
1970’s.
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