Kaskanian Misses Top Two, or Does He?

City of Gardena Seal

Last night, as the polls were closing in Gardena, CA, The Daily Breeze reported that incumbent City Councilmember Dan Medina had won the top spot in terms of votes, followed closed by Mark Henderson.

Art Kaskanian, endorsed by three sitting council members, trailed in the third spot.

I spoke with Kaskanian this morning, who reported to me that some of his mailers were not released. A number of residents informed him that they had received none of campaign material.

He will be investigating this strange circumstance.

Furthermore, the Gardena City clerk informed him that there were still three hundred provisional ballots to be counted, and the final tally would be ready on Monday.

I recall during the 2014 Torrance City Council elections that one candidate surged from fourth place to second place in the wee hours of the next morning. Anything can happen in Gardena City Council race.


CBS Los Angeles reported the following tally by 11pm last night (March 3rd, 2015):

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CITY COUNCIL                   15 of 15 Precincts Reporting GARDENA
DAN MEDINA	519	31%
MARK HENDERSON	486	29%
HAROUT KASKANIAN	356	21%
RON ROSS	330	19%

The Daily Breeze the reported the final percentages:

With all precincts reporting and vote-by-mail ballots counted, Medina won re-election with 31.9 percent of the vote and Henderson, an information technology manager and former city commissioner, won the second seat with 27.6 percent. Businessman Art Kaskanian came in third with 22.4 percent and retired social worker Ron Ross finished last with 18.0 percent.

By the early morning, Kaskanian has gained few percent, and Henderson had fallen about two percent.

Because of the low voter turnout, because of the remaining ballots, the race will not be officially over until Monday.

Anything is still possible for Kaskanian at this point, or even for Ross.

One other fact about Gardena elections. . .

Not only was the turn-out really low (3,000 votes out of 59,000), but two years ago, the city re-elected incumbent mayor Paul Tanaka, even though he did not campaign, and actively supported another mayoral candidate.

Low-information and low-interest would characterize the 2013 turn out. To what extent did those two factors influence this year's Gardena city council elections?