Elections

This year's election coverage at Streetsblog is mostly focused on the primary races where seats in the state legislature are up for grabs, but we've also got some competitive congressional contests where the Democratic nomination is at stake. One of them is the 10th congressional district in Brooklyn, where 13-term incumbent Ed Towns faces a challenge from Kevin Powell, in an intense rematch of two candidates who squared off in 2008.

Last night's 33rd Senate District transportation debate pitted two candidates against each other who are unlikely to ever appear on the same ballot: Democrat Daniel Padernacht and Green John Reynolds. Padernacht is running a distant third place in polling for the September 14 primary, after incumbent Pedro Espada Jr. and challenger Gustavo Rivera. Neither Espada nor Rivera showed up at last night's debate: Espada refuses to debate his opponents and Rivera chose to attend an NAACP forum instead.

UPDATE: Strike the original post (formerly titled: "Challenger Nunes Reportedly Backs Out of Transportation Debate"). Lynn Nunes did answer questions at tonight's District 10 transportation debate, while longtime incumbent Shirley Huntley did not attend. We'll have details from the event tomorrow.

This November, New York voters will elect the occupants of every seat in the State Senate and Assembly, as well as their next governor, attorney general, and comptroller. For many races in heavily Democratic New York City, the deciding moment will come a lot sooner -- on primary day. That's just two weeks away on Tuesday, September 14.

The Colorado governor's race was always going to be one for sustainable transportation advocates to keep an eye on. The likely Democratic nominee, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, has built a solid resume of support for transit and bicycling. But recent events suggest the green transportation/livable streets stakes may be waaaaay higher than expected.

After Sen. Scott Brown's (R-MA) January upset in the race for the congressional seat long held by the late Ted Kennedy, his win was chalked up to several factors: voter reluctance to embrace health care reform, campaign-trail gaffes by the Democratic candidate -- and a hyper-folksy ad campaign that featured Brown cruising around the state meeting voters in his "old truck."

Here's a chart breaking down New York Times exit poll results from the mayoral election.

Mike Bloomberg defeated Bill Thompson yesterday to claim a third term as New York City mayor, but no one except the mayor's own staff is calling the five point margin a victory for the incumbent. The headlines today are all about Bloomberg's surprisingly lackluster showing. After breaking his own records for campaign spending and mounting a juggernaut political operation, the mayor could barely muster a majority of the votes.

Conventional wisdom has it that the races for New Jersey governor and Congressional rep in New York's 23rd District are the hottest (or, in the case of the latter, most bizarre) Election Day 2009 tickets. Though Daily Kos has declared the contest for mayor of New York to be "pretty well predetermined," we'll be watching the returns just the same.