In times like these it’s instructive to rely on the insight of the great Austin Powers: “What does it all mean Basil?”
Since the wee hours of Wednesday that’s the question that’s been rolling around when it comes to the still undetermined race for Sioux Falls mayor and the results of the three City Council elections.
What does it say about the current state of the Sioux Falls electorate, the people who live here and their vision of the future?
The instinct would be to overlay the national atmosphere of bifurcation on the mayoral contest between Jamie Smith and Christine Erickson.
That’s not accurate.
Winning an election in Sioux Falls – probably any local election – requires balancing an array of constituencies on a much more direct level.
Old Sioux Falls and newcomers.
Wealth and the working class.
Developers and consumers.
Drivers and potholes.
The issues are practical, immediate and driven by self-interest.
Re: The aforementioned drivers and the potholes, which as we know is the top issue among Sioux Falls voters.
Christine was able to collect two more chips than Jamie after the initial results were tallied on Tuesday.
There will be a recount and we’re all learning together how that will play out. The Sioux Falls City Council held a special meeting Friday morning to officially canvas the votes, a procedural step that will speed up the process by a few days at least.
It’s going to take weeks, at least, and Mayor Paul TenHaken said in a video posted Thursday that he’s willing to serve as long as it takes to determine his successor.
But still, he said, it’s like telling his son at high school graduation next May that he has to keep going to school until September.
Ugh.
It all feels like an uncharted voyage.
That’s probably fitting in an election cycle that was new in several ways because the Legislature changed the calendar, mandating that local and state elections need to be held on the same day.
How did we end up here?
In the three weeks since the first round of voting on June 2 – which eliminated three of the five candidates – there were significant variables in play that didn’t have obvious answers.
Reminder, local races are non-partisan, but the specter of party was part of the discussion right up to the end.
Christine had the most votes after June 2 – by a ways – 37 percent to 28 percent.
There were about 38,700 votes in the race.
Christine received about 14,400 of those votes compared to 10,900 for Jamie.
The winner of the first round of Sioux Falls polling isn’t always the winner after the second. But in this case, Jamie had a lot of ground to make up.
The next question was whether not having a statewide Republican contest on the ballot would make a difference.
Judging by the results on Tuesday, it probably did.
Christine’s nine point margin became zero, with about 2,200 fewer votes cast.
That’s probably a better indicator about the state of the Sioux Falls electorate than the first round.
As the pool of voters shrinks – as it often does in the runoff – the value of each voter increases, testing the strength of the candidates’ appeal to those constituencies and their ground game.
Tuesday’s runoff is more representative of reality than the results of the first round.
Voters in Sioux Falls are pretty consistent, the old constituencies remain the constituencies and on election day the winning candidate is usually the one who brings as many of those groups together as possible.
Money makes a difference, but it’s not the main thing.
If it were, it would not have been this close. We won’t know the final figures for a while but Christine raised more than double what Jamie did. Even taking out the high-profile $100,000 from a political action committee financed by big-time business interests, she still had more money.
What was notable about the three-week runoff campaign was the degree to which – while political forces were in play – the candidates themselves didn’t engage.
It never became Republican versus Democrat, not in the debates and rhetoric, at least.
And there were plenty of opportunities.
“One of the things that Christine and I did, and I’m thankful for, is that we showed people we can disagree without being disagreeable,” Jamie said in an interview with Sioux Falls Live on Wednesday. “In this political climate these days, there were things in this campaign that were done by others, but I don’t think either of the candidates were the ones who were throwing pot shots at each other.”
Christine didn’t do interviews on Wednesday but issued a statement.
“Congratulations also to Jamie for a hard fought campaign. Sioux Falls has a bright future, and we will come together to make sure our community thrives today and for generations to come,” she said.
Christine always felt like the candidate of mainstream business interests.
It’s not like Jamie is anti-business – he’s a real estate agent after all – but it’s likely he was unable to attract support from the business community writ large. Did they harbor doubts about his ultimate ability to maintain the city’s growth which has fed the decades-long winning streak of growth and development that has fed their personal success?
There’s nothing wrong with success, of course, that’s not the point and Jamie never insinuated there was.
In Christine, there was more certainty and comfort that the status quo was the goal.
It should also be noted that, from a purely tactical standpoint, Jamie left some opportunities to cast doubt on his opponent.
He never made an issue of particular votes from her City Council days. (There’s always vulnerabilities in votes.)
He never made an issue of the $100,000 contribution to her campaign. (You don’t have to be a class warrior to bring it up.)
He never seriously challenged her executive experience. (Maybe bringing up running a Cub Scout troop wasn’t enough.)
He never made an issue of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party adhering to Christine’s mojo. (She didn’t ask for it, and didn’t embrace it, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a campaign advantage if Jamie chose to use it. He did not.)
For her part, Christine didn’t invoke Jamie’s role as the statewide Democrat standard bearer in 2022. (It would not have been difficult to find video of him firing off left-leaning talking points from a gubernatorial election.)
She didn’t directly question his voting record in the Legislature. (Again, there’s always fodder in a voting record when properly cast.)
And she didn’t point out his sometimes loose understanding of local policy minutia. (Instead, she frequently referenced her eight years on the City Council.)
Those were, no doubt, conscious decisions born of an unwillingness to engage in what we politely refer to as “comparative campaigning.”
The danger being that you turn off more people than you attract.
In many ways, this was a normal mayoral campaign in Sioux Falls. We just don’t know who won yet.
There does seem to be a shift, however, in the selection of three new councilors, all relative unknowns before the campaign.
Sara Pankonin in the Southeast District is a civil engineer with virtually no public track record but is a bright and curious person with no particular dogma to press, judging by my initial conversations.
She likely won because she worked really hard, constantly going door-to-door. Good old-fashioned Sioux Falls campaigning.
Perhaps the most remarkable development in the council races was that we now have two people who weren’t even born in the United States.
James Oppenheimer, who won an At-Large seat, is English, with the accent and all. He came into the race with a list of experiences in the local non-profit world, however, and breadth of support from the mainstream business community.
He also worked the streets tirelessly. (James was certainly surprised to see me open the door in sweat pants and hoodie one Saturday morning.)
And then there’s Zak Okuwe, who was born in Sudan.
Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that Zak’s success – an African immigrant from a working-class family – would have been possible a decade or two ago.
But our city has changed.
Zak grew up in Sioux Falls.
Was educated in Sioux Falls.
Made a life in Sioux Falls as a nurse and advocate for STEM education in middle and high school students from underserved communities.
Nobody who meets Zak isn’t impressed by him, from the titans of business to the neighborhoods of the Central District where he won over voters.
To me, Zak’s success represents something we should all be proud of, that generations of Sioux Fallsians have built a city – from business to education to faith – where all people are welcome and if you put in the work you have a chance at a pretty good life.
He is reflective of so many other refugees and immigrants and transplants, who have made this their home.
That feels like a counterweight to the conversation, the politics, swirling around us.
I’ve said it many times over the course of this election cycle, but it was a wonderful slate of candidates, people who brought a sincere commitment to public service to the arena.
The candidates who came out on the wrong side of the vote counts on Tuesday should be proud as well. I know that Vince Danh, Mike Crane and Zach DeBoer will remain engaged and I thank them for that.
I admit that sounds pollyannish at best, that it glosses over all the challenges and problems that do have as a city.
One election doesn’t solve transportation, homelessness or addiction.
It doesn’t eliminate debates over spending on quality of life, or streets or public safety.
It will be hard. People will make mistakes. There will be tough days.
So, back to Austin Powers’ metaphysical question.
I think it means that regardless of who becomes the next mayor, we’re doing pretty good Sioux Falls. That we can bend and adapt to growth and change, that local government can meet the needs of the people in the moment and beyond.
At least that’s my hope.
Best Little City in America, I say.