This is in the "Winning locally" comments, but it got long. I thought it would make a good diary too, I hope that's alright.
It looks like I lost. I say this because the votes aren't certified yet, but I'm behind by 121.
I've been making the rounds to supporters and haven't had a chance to post here, but since you are kind enough to ask about my race, I'll fill you in.
Final total was REP-1013 DEM(me)-892. But compare this to the race in 2001 where the final count was 1287 to 467.
The numbers below, at least, gives some perspective.
(I had a hard time formatting this, sorry)
2001
Precinct 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Total
DEM 58 38 56 39 74 44 49 65 44 467
REP 196 145 155 154 170 117 113 88 149 1287
2004
Precinct 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Total
ME(D) 103 122 112 93 134 87 79 67 95 892
HIM(R) 195 34 134 128 145 99 112 70 96 1013
Here are some of the other positives:
Notice that his numbers are down, Looks like I took 274 votes away from him. I also got 150 more people to vote this time than voted last time.
Across the district, in every precinct, I was eating up the votes. His numbers either stayed the same or got worse where I was making improvements in every precinct. Naturally, my poorest precincts were the ones where I didn't campaign the hardest.
In 2001 the Democratic candidate's best precinct had 74 votes. I broke 100 votes in 4 precincts and broke 90 in two others.
I doubled the vote in our first precinct (his home precinct) where his numbers stayed the same as 2001. In MY home precinct I beat him by 88 votes. This was so shocking to the precincts election board that one (Republican) inspector actually said "That can't be right". But the Judge of Elections ( A Republican as well, but one that voted for me, God bless her) said "Oh YES it is." (BTW, my precinct went for GWB in 2004, ain't that something?)
I did the best of all of the Democratic District (Ward) candidates. I had the best turnout percentage, I came the closest to winning, registration was 2-1 against me and it didn't matter.
I had great Election Day stories too, it was almost like a year ago. I had someone show up in a walker after DOUBLE hip surgery to vote for me, I had a woman carrying her swaddled newborn handing out my sample ballot at one of my precincts. I managed to get some former Kerry volunteers to come out of retirement and help me out. I had people volunteering for me that day and the night before. I had Republican voters handing back the sample ballot to the REP pollworkers and taking mine.
And I had my opponent sweating bullets all day. It was great.
I have a few regrets, but I won't mention them here. I'll try to make Drinking Liberally in Philly next week so that I can share war-stories.
I appreciated every Dem and Rep voter I got, but I LOVED every GWB voter that said they were voting for me. To me, that meant I found the common ground in the Township. It meant that I was speaking to everyone. It also meant that the Republican party couldn't actually count on any vote in my district, because I was getting them.