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Incumbent 13th District City Councilman Warren Branch turned back determined challenge of former television reporter Shannon Sneed to win by 201 votes.

COUNCIL’S STATUS QUO PREVAILS,
ALL WRITE-IN CANDIDATES FAIL;
NO REPUBLICANS ARE ELECTED

Branch turns back strong challenge
from TV reporter Shannon Sneed
in  13th  Councilmanic  District

Thirteenth District Baltimore City Councilman Warren M. Branch survived a strong write-in challenge Tuesday to retain his seat and serve a second term on the council, edging out challenger Shannon Sneed by just over 200 votes.

With all 290 precincts reporting at 10:55 p.m., unofficial results showed Branch with 1691 votes to Sneed’s 1490.

Libertarian Ronald M. Owens-Bey received 160 votes in the 13th, where there was no Republican candidate.

Although there were write-in candidates in each of the city’s 14 councilmanic districts, as well as for mayor, City Council president and comptroller, other than Sneed none came close to mounting a significant challenge to any of the Democrats listed on the ballot.

Nor did any of the Republicans, in this city that has not elected a member of the GOP to district office since the mid-1930s, and has had only one Republican mayor since that time, in the 1940s and 1960s.

Democrat Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake was reelected mayor overwhelmingly, defeating Republican Alfred V. Griffin, 39,970 to 5,826. There were 1194 write-in votes in the mayor’s race.

Bernard C. “Jack” Young easily defeated Republican David A. Wiggins and Libertarian candidate Lorenzo Gaztanaga, 36,588 to 4,704 and 2,386 respectively.

WRITE-IN VOTES WERE CAST

Six-hundred-thirty-seven write-in votes were cast in the council president’s race.

Comptroller Joan M. Pratt ran unopposed, polling 39,303 votes to 575 write-ins.

Contacted by telephone just after the final results were in, a weary Shannon Sneed declined to comment, telling Voice of Baltimore she had “not looked at anything yet.

“We’ll wait and see,” she said, in answer to a question whether she would ask for a recount.

Sneed, who left WJZ-TV Channel 13 last spring to run for City Council, appeared exhausted after spending weeks campaigning heavily door-to-door since losing the September Democratic primary to Branch by a contested 43 votes, 1776 to 1733.

Including three other candidates, 61 percent of the primary vote went against Branch, who had won his first term four years earlier by a margin of 51 votes after the counting of absentee ballots.

CONAWAY LOST AGAIN TO MOSBY

Incumbent Belinda Conaway (D-7th), who lost to Nick Mosby by 653 votes in the Democratic primary, also ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign, losing again to Mosby by a margin of 2,936 to 626.

Mosby will be one of two new faces on the City Council, the other being Brandon M. Scott, who won election in the 2nd District to replace retiring Councilman Nicholas C. D’Adamo Jr., who has served on the council since 1987.

D’Adamo told VoB he was retiring because the City Council “just isn’t fun anymore.”

Other council incumbents, all Democrats, returned to office Tuesday include James B. Kraft (1st), Robert W. Curran (3rd), Bill Henry (4th), Rochelle “Rikki” Spector (5th), Sharon Green Middleton (6th), Helen L. Holton (8th), William A. “Pete” Welch Jr. (9th), Council Vice-President Edward Reisinger (10th), William H. Cole 4th (11th), Carl Stokes (12th) and Mary Pat Clarke (14th).

— Alan Z. Forman

alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org