Thursday, May 14, 2015

City Council Election Maps

The 2015 Richardson City Council election maps tell a story. But not a surprising story. Below is the election map for the Townsend/Wilder Place 1 race, won by Bob Townsend. The precincts won by Townsend are in dark green. The precincts won by Rick Wilder are in light green.

Place 1

Given that Townsend won with an overall 62% vote, the map is mostly dark green as you'd expect. Wilder won handily in his home neighborhood of Duck Creek. He also won handily in the Prairie Creek neighborhood, the area closest to the planned Palisades development. Just to the north and south of there, the race was close, with Townsend winning by a tiny margin to the north and Wilder winning by a tiny margin to the south. Almost everywhere else in Richardson, Townsend won handily. The Palisades issue was a real one, hurting Townsend, but it turned out to be decisive in only one neighborhood.



Below is the election map for the Simpson/Tatum Place 4 race, won by Mabel Simpson. The precincts won by Simpson are in light green. The precincts won by Claudia Tatum are in dark green.

Place 4

Tatum won only one precinct, 2865, and that by a narrow margin, 23-21. Precinct 2865 is bounded roughly by Belt Line Rd to Lookout Dr, Collins Blvd to Plano Rd. It's a geographically large precinct but one with few voters. Simpson won everywhere else, including the Prairie Creek precinct that Townsend lost. Simpson won there, 141-98. If there's a story here, maybe it's that Prairie Creek anger was targeted towards incumbent city council members (Townsend) and not the Richardson Coalition PAC (who endorsed Simpson as well as Townsend). Or maybe the story is that Tatum was a weak candidate that not even angry Prairie Creek voters could bring themselves to vote for.

1 comment:

Mark Steger said...

A reader suggests that Mabel Simpson's win in Prairie Creek might be better explained by her own strength there than Tatum's general weakness. The reader makes a good point.