It was a down to
the wire finish for the Town of Porter last night in the Ward 3 race with
Democrat William Lopez upsetting Republican incumbent Rob Pomeroy’s hope for
re-election by a margin of only two votes.
Pomeroy took three
out of the four voting precincts in town but fell to Lopez in Westchester
precinct 16 where they both reside in Porter Cove. Pomeroy took 39 votes
there while Lopez took 81.
In the overall
results, Lopez received 298 votes over Pomeroy’s 296 votes.
Pomeroy told the
Chesterton Tribune this morning he is not planning on asking for a
recount of the votes as he said he does not know of any statistical data
suggesting there might have been a different outcome.
“Half the people
voted for me, half of the people didn’t. It’s what it is,” said Pomeroy, who
was elected in 2011. “I don’t have any regrets. I think I am leaving the
Council in better shape than it was four years ago. I’m proud of that. It’s
been a Council that has worked well together.”
Lopez had received
campaign support from two union groups, $1,000 from Boilermakers Local 374
and $400 from Ironworkers Local 395. Lopez had been president of the
Boilermakers Union for a number of years and believes that having the
support of the union helped him in his election win.
“I like to thank
everyone for coming out to vote. Every vote counts. I’ve always stressed
that,” Lopez said.
Westchester
precinct 16 had a significantly larger number of straight-ticket Democrat
voters -- 23 -- comparted to straight-ticket Republican voters -- 9.
All three contested
races saw the Democrat challenger as the victor. In the town’s first ward
race, Democrat Erik Wagner beat out Republican Levi Louis Mele, taking every
precinct, by an overall total of 427 votes to 163 votes -- a margin of 72/28
percent.
In a somewhat
closer race, Democrat Ross LeBleu got a total of 381 votes over Republican
Kimberly Fowler’s 205 votes, a 65/35 percent margin, to win the Council’s
Ward 4 seat.
The Council on Jan.
1 will have four Democrats with the inclusion of Greg Stinson who ran
unopposed in Ward 2 and one Republican, Tim Conroy, representing Ward 5.
Conroy was unopposed in yesterday’s election.