Jon Swanson may have the appointed incumbency on Sumner’s fourth city council seat, but challenger Nancy Dumas took the advantage in the August primary election.
In a three-way race for the two candidacy spots, Dumas took more than 41 percent of the vote, followed by Swanson with nearly 32 percent and former mayor and councilman Richard Lawson with a little less than 27 percent.
Those percentages are based on unofficial vote tallies available Monday morning. The election is officially certified today, Wednesday.
“[I’m] pleasantly surprised, simply because I didn’t have signs up there,” Dumas said, referring to her lack of campaign signage. “I think in this particular instance, voters really read the voters pamphlet. I got phone calls, too, from people who wanted to find out more about me; I got e-mails.
“In this instance (a small city election) people can say ‘How do you feel about that, Nancy?'”
Dumas’ campaign thus far has relied on one-on-one conversations with voters, word-of-mouth and working existing networks. She is a frequent public commenter at both city council and school board meetings.
She has no campaign signage, largely because of the printing expense, she said.
Heading into the general election, she is considering handcrafting signs and asking supporters to do the same.
Dumas said she thought her relationships with people around town would work to her advantage.
“I don’t run in the same social circles as anyone in council,” she said. “My reach is different, I think. I know more people with younger families… it’s just my knowledge base, it’s where I come from.”
On the other side of the ballot, Swanson is preparing a new campaign mailer and getting ready to “wear out a couple of shoes” speaking with constituents, he said.
“I’m glad I’m one of the two finalists,” he said. “My plan is to get the name recognition out. I’m going to tell the story of what my vision is and what I bring to the table.”
Swanson has said repeatedly in his campaign that he does not come to council with an axe to grind, or an agenda. He supports the development of a YMCA in Orton Junction and is a self-described property rights advocate.
Whether the primary election results reflect the outcome of the general election in November is to be seen. Countywide voter turnout was a bit more than 27 percent.
Estimating the city’s potential eligible voters at 7,000 (by applying age percentage breakdowns from the 2000 census to the 2010 population count of 9,451), Sumner had a roughly 22 percent turnout at 1,601 voters and, because primary elections place candidates in the final running, those voters tend to be the candidates’ greatest supporters.
Even if voter tastes are the same, there is the matter of who will receive Lawson’s votes now that he is out of the running. Lawson himself believes his candidacy split votes that would otherwise have gone to Swanson, Lawson said Friday.
Lawson will be throwing his support behind Swanson’s campaign, he said.
