Well, I don’t learn very well.
Thursday early afternoon I wrote this column saying how it was unlikely Luz Escamilla could gain 109 votes on Jim Dabakis in the Salt Lake mayor’s race, and so would finish third and out of the November general election.
Ooopppps!
Then came in the updated vote totals at 3 p.m.
And Escamilla had not only caught Dabakis but was now 400+votes ahead.
And before you could say: “Man I should have spent all my money in the primary,” Dabakis conceded the second-place finish to Escamilla.
BANG!!, Utah’s largest city is guaranteed another female mayor next year – even if it won’t be current Mayor Jackie Biskupski.
It will be a final race between Salt Lake City Councilwoman Erin Mendenhall and state Sen. Escamilla, D-Salt Lake.
Just like that, Dabakis, who was the favorite for months in the polls and among political insiders, is out of the contest.
And it doesn’t look so smart that he kept more than $170,000 in his campaign account, planning on getting a jump-start on the general election after coasting to a primary victory.
Nope. That’s not going to happen.
Now, if I could have just remembered the 4th District race of just a year ago, when then-Democratic challenger Ben McAdams was well ahead of Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, after Election Night — then less ahead after an updated vote total, then less ahead, then less ahead.
And then a big winner by just under 700 votes when all the votes were canvassed.
And all the while, updated count after updated count, all these really smart guys on the Web, kind of like me, were saying how the later votes counted would be heavily Republican and Love was sure to win.
This was a nonpartisan race Tuesday, all the major candidates being self-confessed Democrats.
But you know what?
Maybe all this anti-Trump talk, all this concern, on the left and the right, about how one presents himself/herself in public, how it wasn’t smart for the Salt Lake mayor to fight against the Republican governor and Legislature, and GOP establishment, maybe, just maybe, many city voters were ready to call for peace, a let’s-work-together attitude.
That’s what either Mendenhall or Escamilla will bring to the mayor’s suite in City Hall.
Maybe.
In any case, Dabakis, a former progressive state senator who loved to verbally tweak the noses of state Republicans while in office, appears to be out.
Another vote update is coming Friday afternoon.
But Dabakis clearly believes he can’t gain 421 votes on Escamilla. He conceded Thursday afternoon soon after the vote update. Clearly, he doesn’t see the final Friday count bringing him enough votes to overcome the woman he sat next to on the state Senate floor for six year.
Thursdays’ number totals:
Mendenhall, 24.27 percent, or 8,928 votes.
Escamilla, 21.43 percent, or 7,884 votes.
Dabakis, 20.29 percent, or 7,463 votes (421 votes less than Escamilla).
David Garbett, 16.72 percent, or 6,150 votes.
David Ibarra, 8.19 percent, 3,013 votes.
Stan Penfold, 6.8 percent, 2,503 votes.
Rainer Huck, 1.15 percent, 554 votes.
Richard Goldberger, 0.79 percent, 292 votes.
Showing once again, for slow learners like myself, that it’s a well-developed ground game – and not big money, or name I.D., or catchy slogans – that win Salt Lake mayoral primaries.
Final totals won’t come until later, but the pre-primary fundraising/spending (with cash on-hand) show:
| Raised | Spent | Cash on hand | |
| Ibarra | $437,426.74 | $414,986.96 | $22,439.78 |
| Garbett | $297,063.84 | $214,714.44 | $82 |
| Dabakis | $295,080.00 | $124,043.05 | $171,036.95 |
| Escamilla | $206,659.28 | $175,008.30 | $31,650.98 |
| Mendenhall | $121,159.25 | $96,380.24 | $31,360.60 |
With the others well behind both in spending and votes.
So the primary victors were 4th and 5th place in fundraising, but ahead in votes.
What does Dabakis’ $171,036 in left-over cash do for him now? Unfortunately, just a good financial start should he try for mayor again in four years.
This has to be a stunning defeat for Dabakis, who was counting on a mayoral victory to keep him the top dog for Utah’s progressives.
As mayor, he could finally have gotten some real power – and not just a firebrand as he was in the GOP-dominated Senate.
One has to say that Biskupski’s in-your-face management style, similar to Dabakis’, may have well hurt him in this race.
Her unpopularity, as measured by UtahPolicy.com polling over the last several years, could well have been a pretext to Dabakis’ sudden, and somewhat unexpected (at least by me and other so-called experts) defeat.
Utahns, even liberal Salt Lake City voters, clearly want their leaders to work well with others. No more kicking sand on the beach, which may get attention, but not results.
Now we’ll see how Mendenhall and Escamilla, while no shrinking violets are certainly nothing like Dabakis’ antics, run their general election campaigns.
Good luck to both.
