DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 6:00 pm
Democrat Chris Beutler was the top vote-getter in the mayor’s race in unofficial final results from Tuesday’s primary election.
The former state senator walked away with 48 percent of the votes, compared to Republican City Councilman Ken Svoboda’s 35 percent.
They were trailed by independent candidate Roger Yant with 14 percent, and Nebraska Party candidate Mike Deal at 3 percent.
Beutler and Svoboda now advance to the May 1 general election. The winner will replace Coleen Seng, who announced last fall that she would not seek re-election.
While the point of the primary was to narrow the field of four to two, Beutler is likely to benefit from his primary win by seeing more campaign donations come his way in the next month.
Beutler said the 13-point lead was better than he expected.
“It’s a good night,” he said. “The signs have been good, but we didn’t know what would happen for sure. I’m pleasantly surprised.”
He thinks the results indicate Lincoln voters want change at city hall.
“They want a fresh look at things from the outside,” he said.
Svoboda was his usual chipper self after the final results came in, saying he expected to come in second place because some of his voters might have gone to Yant and Deal. He did say he thought he’d be a little closer to Beutler.
He was disappointed in the voter turnout, however, saying the mere 28,000 voters who showed up out of more than 154,000 registered voters was not adequate for a city Lincoln’s size.
Political consultant Phil Young said Beutler might attract an even greater percentage of voters in the general election.
“People are people, and people like winners,” he said.
A big spread also tends to make people want to give money to and curry favor with whoever looks to be the next mayor. However, the primary results can also make people pay more attention to the challenger, Young said.
A 13-point lead is difficult to overcome unless voters are exposed to “new information” — whether positive information about Svoboda or negative information about Beutler — that would cause them to reconsider, Young said.
But Tuesday’s low turnout, at 18 percent, could also bring out a whole different group of voters in the general election.
Tuesday’s voters were likely frequent voters who knew exactly who they wanted to vote for, Young said. If the number of voters doubles on May 1, for example, it could be a whole new race.
Beutler was a state senator for 24 years before term limits forced him out of his seat in the Legislature this year. Svoboda has served on the City Council since 2001.
Svoboda’s polling late last year had him leading Beutler, but he said Tuesday that was before the campaigns got started and was probably largely based on his name recognition.
Since then, Beutler has mounted an aggressive campaign, co-opting the Republican theme of making Lincoln more business-friendly and erecting a platform with plenty of planks.
Svoboda has tried to paint Beutler as a poser, saying he has reinvented himself as a pro-growth, pro-business candidate even though he got consistently low marks from business groups for his voting record in the Legislature.
Svoboda said he’d be meeting with his campaign workers bright and early this morning to embark upon their plan to win the election in May.
“We’re looking very much forward to the next 28 days,” he said.
Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.