90% of Madison voters don’t really care that Marshall Dennert finally won an election and beat out two-term incumbent Roy Lindsay to become their next mayor. Only 10% of Madison’s 6,019 registered voters showed up Tuesday to vote. 0.1% of that mostly uninterested electorate, just six voters, constituted Dennert’s margin of victory.
Lindsay could ask for a recount of his 305–299 loss, but as most folks around Madison would say, who cares?
Only 64 more Madisonians voted for Dennert than in 2016, when Mayor Lindsay thumped Dennert 457 to 241, but Lindsay drew 158 fewer votes.
Dennert has promised less city involvement in real estate deals, more promotion of recycling, and a revamp of utility charges away from fees and toward actual use… but as 90% of Madison voters apparently say, who cares?
Dagnabbit, I hate that this is true…
Travis, why is it true? Are things running do well (or so inevitably) in Madison that no one thinks it matters who’s mayor?
Actually, what I’ve heard through the grapevine is that there was a group of people so unhappy with some of the developments and spending plans for the city that they pushed really hard to knock Roy out of office.
What those folk forget is that the city commission has even more power than the mayor when it comes to approving spending and building projects…
Interesting: was the opposition straight-up displeasure with government sticking its nose in the market and playing favorites, or did the developments simply favor one set of favorites over another set of favorites? Does Dennert promise real reform or just a redirection of cronyism to new cronies?
Indeed, the Mayor is just one vote. Whoever pushed Lindsay out this time needs to stick around and push two commissioners out next year… unless, of course, their success with Dennert this year scares the commissioners away from whatever irked the Dennert camp to action.
Hmm… I wonder, in an election with 10% turnout, if I should put “action” in mock quote marks. If all the Dennert camp could do was get 64 more people to vote for their guy, I’d think an opposing party could neutralize that advantage with one good weekend of door-knocking.
Travis, how much campaigning took place?
I live in a Madison apartment building, and I came home from work one afternoon to see small campaign cards for Marshall Dennert stuck in the eaves of each apartment door. These cards even had magnets attached to the back, so you could stick it on your fridge. I didn’t see any equivalent campaign flyers for Lindsay.
The local Madison paper ran ads for both candidates, with Dennert again being the only one placing a letter-sized flyer in the paper one day before election. Lindsay bought small ad spaces inside the paper itself.
KJAM radio ran a short 15-second ad for Lindsay a couple times a day. I didn’t hear any sort of radio ad for Dennert.
Lastly, I did see a few campaign signs while walking around town. One house on N. Egan featured both candidates’ signs on the same lawn. The only other campaign sign I saw was at Subway, and it was for Lindsay.
I should note that I hardly saw any campaigning done on social media like Facebook besides links to election news articles from KJAM and the Daily Leader.
Wade, when I went looking, I could find no social media presence for either campaign. Maybe 90% of Madisonians missed the election because they didn’t hear about it online.
Commercial radio in South Dakota? I guess some people still listen to that vast cultural wasteland. ;-)
Cory, this is why turnout was so low:
“If there’s nobody reporting on or providing information about candidates, about legislation, about how money is being spent, or the budgeting process, how will people know that they require a quality challenger to unseat an ineffective mayor?” she said. “They don’t know the mayor is ineffective!”
https://short1.link/vnEnJb
Cory: For whatever reason, I never have been too much of a fan of public radio. I used to listen to SDPB’s overnight classical music until they replaced it with overnight BBC World News.
As for KJAM radio, I sometimes wonder how relevant they still are in 2019. Judging by their Facebook page, they still do get listeners, but exactly how many is hard to determine. The FM station is alright if you’re into modern country. Their AM signal is rather poor, running only 500 watts day and 62 watts night. The classic hits playlist is very small and repetitive. Whenever I get a ride on the bus or with a friend, it’s almost always on a Sioux Falls or Brookings station instead of KJAM.
Good point, Debbo: voter awareness doesn’t happen all by itself. We need reporters to put the news in front of people and raise their awareness of what’s at stake in elections.
Wade, I don’t hold it against anyone for not liking public radio as much as I do. I also lament SDPB’s shift away from music to constant talk. The fact that music is available on their online streams is only a mild consolation; I listen to The Current from Minneapolis regularly instead of SDPB, but it would be nice to hear good music from a local station that would intermingle local news and events. Listening to radio from afar satisfies my aesthetic urges, but it doesn’t build community.
Cory: I’m the same way with radio here. Right now I’m attached to the new 99.7 KARZ out of Marshall, MN. I want to support the local Madison stations, but with 1390’s playlist being so small, and the signal being so poor, it’s hard to keep listening. And there’s only a certain amount of modern country I’ll listen to. SDPB also broadcasts their classical music via digital HD radio, but that requires an all new radio receiver that can pick up those extra channels. And the quality is nowhere near as good as old analog FM stereo.
In regards to the election, I agree that if both mayoral candidates had extensive social media campaigns, voter turnout would have been much better. There were commenters on the Facebook links to local voting results stating they had no idea Madison had an election that day. With social media promotion, both candidates could have laid out their plans for Madison in more detail.
Dennert never gave up. People are tired of high utility rates being used to fund development projects, among other things. Bust up that Madison Mafia!!!
Really? Dennert is an anti-establishment candidate?
Yes, Marshall was considered the anti-establishment candidate.
I highly doubt that any of the current plans by the city and recent property acquisitions will stop or change just because of a new mayor. I will be shocked if utility rates went down. Crazier things have happened, though, I guess.
Everything I heard was that this was a vote against Roy Lindsay, not a vote for Dennert. I hope Marshall will do a good job, but what I’ve heard from him in candidate forums hasn’t convinced me of that…
Travis, one of the first steps in being anti-establishment is to speak up against the establishment and their excesses. Will Dennert do that?