The Seattle Times has published another precinct-by-precinct map breaking down how Seattle voted in the August 18 primary.
This time they look at the results of the bag fee proposal, which lost 53-47.
Earlier in the week, they mapped out the results in mayor’s race.
Looking at the two maps side-by-side helps make a little sense out of the pending general election contest between mayoral candidates Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn—which has been a bit hard to pin down because both men were running as outsiders and change agents, playing to a mish mash of constituencies. For example, Sierra Club activist McGinn ran as both a bike riding urban green and a tax-slashing conservative while T-Mobile executive Mallahan ran as both a clean-up-the-mess pragmatic businessman and an Obama-inspired progressive.
What comparing the maps shows is that Mallahan’s vote tacked to the more conservative, blue collar anti-bag tax vote in Seattle’s outer ring neighborhoods (ironically, Mallahan supports the bag tax), while McGinn’s tacked to the liberal pro-bag tax vote in places like Capitol Hill and Wallingford. (McGinn is pro-bag tax.) That inner-ring, outer-ring split could make the Mallahan vs. McGinn matchup a nailbiter.
However, there’s an anomaly on the map. Mallahan did not match up with the anti-bag tax vote in South Seattle. That vote—which also includes much of Seattle’s non-white vote—went to Mayor Greg Nickels.
Is one of the keys to the election—one that is shaping up to be a very close contest—the minority vote? It was apparently a key for Nickels’ nailbiter victory over conservative city attorney Mark Sidran in 2001, when—once again—Nickels captured the minority vote. (In a carbon copy of this year’s primary, ousted incumbent Paul Schell carried the minority vote in the 2001 primary).
Which one of the white boys will get it, the bougie bike riding McGinn or the corporate speak schmoozer Mallahan?
