Tulsa Election 2013: Primary results

All the precincts are in. You can download the precinct-level results for the June 11, 2013 elections statewide here. It's the last link on the page, it's a zip file, and it contains a CSV file that you can open in your spreadsheet program or query with your database software.

As a friend put it, Tulsa now has a choice between a Ferengi and ...

Conservatives will have a tough choice in November: If Taylor wins, she's a threat to move up the political ladder for the Democrats. Then again, if Taylor wins, Republicans should be able to unite to defeat her bad ideas (although that didn't work so well last time around). If Bartlett wins, a certain number of Republicans will feel obliged to defend -- yea, even celebrate -- his most ill-considered plans.

At first glance, the numbers give me the impression that Dewey Bartlett Jr will be toast in November. His Midtown Money Belt base went strongly for Kathy Taylor -- in many precincts a clear majority for Taylor. Bartlett Jr's only hope is to tie Taylor to Obama and turn out south and east Tulsa Republicans, as he did in 2009. But Taylor won't give Bartlett Jr as much to work with in that regard as Tom Adelson did. The lack of a party label on the ballot won't help either. Taylor seems to be able, on the one hand, to mobilize activist liberal Democrats with "dog whistles" and back-channel communications while, on the other hand, presenting herself to the broader electorate as above partisan politics.

Christiansen finished first in only 20 precincts. He won several north Tulsa precincts between Pine and Admiral, Utica and Hudson (16, 17, 19, 20, 25). Christiansen won a number of precincts on the far periphery of the city: The western part of Red Fork (143), the furthest west precinct on the Sand Springs Line (149), the precinct in the far northeast corner (23), several far east Tulsa precincts (41, 42, 43, 53, 57, 58, 61, 101; Wagoner County precinct 101), and the only voter who turned out in Osage Co. precinct 205. He edged out Bartlett in ORU's precinct 162 -- a very low turnout of 30 voters with school out for the summer.

Christiansen received only 29.5% of the vote in the old boundaries of Council District 8, finishing first in only one precinct (159). Christiansen barely edged out Taylor, who had 28.9% of the vote in that area.

The city auditor's race is all over bar the shouting. 47.4% and a 29-point lead over the next nearest rival means almost certain victory in the runoff, and you have to imagine that a significant number of Lewis supporters are unhappy enough with incumbent Richards to support Criswell in the next round. By my visual scan of the results, Criswell finished first in all but four precincts.

In the County Commission race, there was a dramatic drop-off in turnout for non-City of Tulsa precincts. John Wright and Don Crall each did well in their home territories of Broken Arrow and Bixby respectively, but they failed to turn out voters in those areas. Their share of the votes combined would have been enough to finish second. Had Wright and Crall united behind one candidate and also driven up turnout in the out-of-Tulsa precincts, even slightly, the unity candidate would have won the primary.

KOTV News on 6 won the prize for fastest results. The KOKI/KRMG team and KJRH each had runners, and each showed some early results, but they were stuck at about 5% and 11% reporting respectively as KOTV quickly moved about 50% reporting. My guess is that KOTV planned to pick up every precinct; perhaps the other two planned to get a few key or nearby precincts to be able to show some results while waiting for the election board to start reporting, which didn't happen until well after 8 p.m, and then shift to election board results.