facing a runoff with Amanda Fritz
for a seat on City Council — emerged
as a champion of bicycling and
sustainable transportation during
his campaign.
(Photo © J. Maus)
The race for City Council Seat #1 has gotten even closer as the final ballots trickle in.
Amanda Fritz is the clear winner, but with only 43% of the votes, she’ll face a runoff contest in November with the second-place vote getter (candidates need 50% plus one to win outright).
Late last night, a very close battle for that spot was taking place between Charles Lewis, John Branam, and Jeff Bissonnette. But, as ballots continued to be tallied into this morning, Bissonnette — who is clearly the most bike-friendly of the three — leap-frogged Branam and moved withing strking distance of Lewis.
The latest numbers from the Multnomah County Elections Office show Bissonnette trailing Lewis by just 622 votes.
I just got off the phone with Bissonnette and he said his campaign hasn’t given up — yet. “I’m still hanging in there for a little bit… but gaining 600 or so votes at this point is hard to project.”
In a nod to how his campaign and ideas shared many values with another candidate — transportation activist Chris Smith — Bissonnette said his chances in passing Lewis, “depend on how many coin flips I win with people.”
A final vote count should be known within a few hours. I’ll update this post when I know more.
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UPDATE (4:30pm): It’s official. Lewis wins. Bissonnette has conceded. Read more on the Mercury’s blog.