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With the vote count completed, Kate Harrison has defeated Ben Gould in the special election for the District 4 City Council seat.

Kate Harrison: 1607 (61.8%)

Ben Gould: 992 (38.2%)

Harrison’s margin of victory, 24%, is the largest margin recorded in any District 4 Council race without an incumbent in the race.

This is the first special election for a City Council seat since the City began electing councilmembers by district in 1986. Jesse Arreguin represented District 4 from 2008 until his election as mayor in November. Before Arreguin, the District was represented by Dona Spring from 1992 to her death in July 2008, and before that by Ann Chandler from 1986 to 1992.

District 4 is composed of downtown, North Shattuck to Cedar (except for one block), a small part of the Northside, and the area west of downtown between University and Dwight extending to Sacramento (or to Acton near University). Tenants outnumber homeowners in District 4.



Turnout

The turnout was low. Only 2620 ballots were cast, a turnout of 28% of the 9453 registered voters. This compares to a turnout of 3769 voters in District 4 in the 2014 general election, which was 43.5% of that year’s 8668 registered voters. Turnout was much higher in the recent presidential election when 7089 voters were cast in the district, a turnout of 74.9%.

Low turnout is not surprising. In the past, runoff elections for mayor and city council, with nothing else on the ballot, have also had lower turnouts than general elections. In addition, as a result of redistricting, District 4 has a higher percentage of student residents than in the past and students tend not to vote in non-presidential elections. Much of the recent growth in the city’s population has taken place in downtown and many of the new residents living in the apartment buildings built since the late 1990s are students, particularly the new buildings in District 4 which are mostly within walking distance of campus. In runoff elections, drop off in voting in student precincts has always been much higher than in other precincts.

Ben Gould is a graduate student at UC, but the chance to vote for a student apparently did not inspire very many students in District 4 to return their vote by mail ballots. Gould was endorsed by ASUC and Graduate Assembly officers, but Kate Harrison had the support of students who were active in the Sanders campaign and in Jesse Arreguin’s mayoral campaign last year, as well as the support of the Cal Berkeley Democrats.

District 4 in past decades included more blocks north of Cedar and west of MLK and those areas had more homeowners and fewer students. In the 2010 Council race in District 4, which took place before the redistricting increased the percentage of students in the District, 4715 votes were cast for one of the four Council candidates on the ballot.

Campaign Contributions

Based on campaign filings and information on the City Web site, Kate Harrison had 270 donors who gave $50 or more while Ben Gould had 107 such donors. Kate Harrison raised a total of $45,716 and Ben Gould raised $20,048. Both candidates reported sending 3 campaign mailers to District voters. In addition, Harrison was supported by independent mailings done by the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club (WDRC) and Berkeley Working Families, an independent expenditure committee supported by the Service Employees International Union, which represents many city employees. Developer contributions were not a factor in the election. Mark Rhoades and another member of the Rhoades Planning Group did make late contributions to Gould, but that was about the extent of contributions from the developer community to Gould’s campaign.

Both candidates waged vigorous campaigns, with lots of yard signs and contact with voters. A majority tenant district, District 4 has always elected progressive candidates to the Council. This year, Kate Harrison had the support of progressive organizations and elected officials, including recently elected Mayor Jesse Arreguin. Arreguin defeated his principal opponent for mayor, Laurie Capitelli, by a 27% margin (1691 votes) in District 4 in November. Ben Gould, who also ran for mayor before running for Council, had received 291 votes for mayor in District 4. Gould was endorsed by the Berkeley Democratic Club (BDC), but that club has never had much influence with District 4 voters. BDC has also been supplanted by WDRC, which is now clearly the most active Democratic club in Berkeley. WRDC supported Bernie Sanders in last year’s Democratic primary, while BDC did not.