No algorithms. No content filters. No A.I. — Honest and insightful analysis from Richmond, VA.
With just five weeks to go in the Mayors race, the landscape is starting to heat up as the countdown to Election Day gets closer (and early voting is underway). We wanted to get you caught up with some recent developments and interviews in bite size and digestible pieces (because too much at once could quite possibly cause indigestion).
Today we cover a recent podcast featuring Graham Moomaw who is covering the race for The Richmonder.com and goes through the landscape and offers up some nuggets you likely have not seen anywhere else. Plus, we extract some of the highlights and lightning from last night’s mayoral forum.
(NOTE: Look for Part 3 on Friday! If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.
Last week on the PodVirginia podcast with Michael Pope, local reporter Graham Moomaw from The Richmonder.com went through the latest developments in the race and talked about issues and the candidates (I also did a podcast with Pope and PodVirginia in August that you can listen to here).
They talked about the relative tame nature of the campaign thus far and the lack of a clear frontrunner and how changed demographics make this an unpredictable race. They also brought up the dreaded “R” word — runoff. The city’s unique electoral system requires that the Mayor’s race winner gets the most votes in at least five of nine Council districts (but not necessarily a majority; Stoney was elected with 36% and 38% of the vote). Our own “little Electoral College” was designed to ensure that anyone running for Mayor citywide would have to campaign across the city and not just campaign to run up votes in some areas and ignore others.
Moomaw said:
“So if nobody gets to five, if there is no candidate who who has enough citywide appeal to get five of nine districts on election day, we go to to a one versus one runoff in mid-December right before Christmas, where the top two finished finishers just basically have a repeat head-to-head, and the runoff system also operates under this five of nine districts rule. Which I don't fully understand, because it’s just two candidates, it seems obvious that one person has to win five.”
Of course, nothing is obvious in Richmond. The procedures that accompany a runoff
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to RVA 5x5 to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.