Cero vs. Judge (by precinct)

The final, certified election results are in for Mercer Island, so I spent a few minutes looking over the detailed precinct-by-precinct results in the City Council race between Mike Cero and Maureen Judge, which Mike won by a slim 51% margin and fewer than 200 votes.  I've argued that "pothole" issues carried the day, but with a competitor who was new to the island, were there any patterns by neighborhood that explain the results?

The answer appears to be yes, that Mike's strong showing in his backyard South End neighborhoods had a big effect.  Although both candidates won an equal number of precincts (23 each), the extra push from the South swung the election.  Mike's own precinct gave him his best showing (66%).

Interestingly, his worst neighborhood (38%) was the same Forest Ave neighborhood that went strongest for Simple Majority, a pattern repeated when you see that the only Lakeridge neighborhoods that Mike lost were the ones that went strongest for Simple Majority.

Here's a breakdown by polling station to give you an idea of how people voted across the island:

Neighborhood	Votes for Cero
Island Park School	49%
Islander Middle School	55%
Lakeridge	56%
Boys & Girls Club	47%
City Hall	52%
Fire Station	47%
High School	51%
West Mercer	50%

(I'm still looking for a GIS-format map of Mercer Island that would let me show the results in a pretty color chart. If you have one, please let me know and I'll share the rest of my SQL data with you)