City elections recap: Kasim Reed cruises, Andre Dickens and Mary Norwood claim seats, four APS races head to runoff

It was a late night for those watching Atlanta’s elections. Most of the city’s races were called a little after 1 a.m. as Fulton County took their sweet time counting ballots. But with the votes counted, we’ve finally concluded months of campaigns, fundraisers, forums, and mudslinging. Well, except for some Atlanta Public Schools board races.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how your elected officials fared. Check out our play-by-play from last night’s happenings here and discuss among yourselves in the comments.

There was hardly any debate whether the mayor would in fact win another term in office. The question was more about his dominance in a campaign season where he had more than $2 million in his war chest and plenty of cash to influence other races. Reed received 84.1 percent of mayoral votes, calling the race rather early in the evening. But some of his key allies lost despite his backing and other opponents weathered the storm. In many ways, Reed may have won the battle, but lost the war last night.

Council Post 2 At-Large - Mary Norwood: Norwood will return to her former citywide Council post following an unsuccessful mayoral bid in 2009. After a heated race, one that went into the wee hours this morning, she claimed victory over incumbent Aaron Watson with more than 2,600 votes and a 52.75-47.13 percent margin. As we’ve previously noted, Norwood’s a tireless campaigner who seems like she can be in four places at once. That hustle certainly paid off in this election.

“Our campaign was a tremendous team effort, with Atlantans from all over our city coming together and supporting my return to City Hall to serve you again,” she told supporters via email this morning. What an exciting, action-packed campaign we had! ... I’m ready and excited to work for you all again!”

Now we’ll get to see what Norwood can actually accomplish this time around as a citywide rep. Rumors are also already swirling about another run for mayor in four years to succeed Reed.

Council Post 3 At-Large - Andre Dickens: First-time Council candidate Andre Dickens, a Georgia Tech staffer and Underwood Hills resident, knocked off 12-year Councilman H. Lamar Willis with more than 2,500 votes and a 52.77-46.79 percent margin. Last night, Dickens said that a win would “be a statement about honesty and integrity.” Atlanta voters agreed with that notion - both in Dickens’ favor and against Willis’ ethical misdeeds.

“I feel like I’ve had two campaigns,” Dickens told CL. “One is the campaign to introduce Atlanta to Andre Dickens to galvanize supporters, volunteers, and money. ... Then there was a whole other campaign to make sure that people were educated about the incumbent for 12 years, which was H. Lamar Willis. ... We did everything we could to make sure people knew who was representing them. But at the same time, that’s so unlike me. I want to heal more than hurt.”

Council District 5 - Natalyn Archibong: The veteran southeast Atlanta councilwoman had a much easier-than-expected victory against her three challengers - Christian Enterkin, Matt Rinker, and J.P. Michalik. Despite a tumultuous few weeks for Archibong, which included ethics accusations and a slander lawsuit against her opponents, she garnered more than enough votes to keep her seat for another four years.

Council District 9 - Felicia Moore: It remained unlikely headed into last night that Felicia Moore would lose this race. But with challenger Ricardo Mosby landing a wad of Reed’s cash from the mayor’s independent committee, this race became a bellwether to see how strong the mayor’s influence could be on Election Day. Considering Moore has regularly voted against Reed’s proposals, he had his reasons to try and make the watchdog’s life difficult. Buts similar to other races, however, his impact was less than expected. Point for Felicia!

Other Council races: The remainder of Atlanta City Council incumbents will be returning to office as expected. That includes Councilmembers Carla Smith, Ivory Young, Cleta Winslow, Alex Wan, Howard Shook, and Keisha Lance Bottoms. Council President Ceasar Mitchell also won re-election in decisive fashion. Meanwhile, Councilmembers Michael Julian Bond, Kwanza Hall, Yolanda Adrean, C.T. Martin, and Joyce Sheperd ran unopposed.

APS District 1 - Leslie Grant: After fears over possible voter problems in Candler Park hurting her chances, Leslie Grant, a former film location scout who now runs a company that educates kids about healthy foods, dominated with a 57.09-42.79 percent win over longtime incumbent Brenda Muhammad for the southeast Atlanta board seat.

APS District 4 - Nancy Meister: An incumbent wins? Who would’ve thought! But yes, the real estate broker has won her second term on the APS board. She was the only opposed local incumbent to reclaim her seat last night.

APS District 7 At-Large - Courtney English: The citywide APS board member held off tough campaign against former educator Nisha Simama. But in the end, the incumbent kept his seat with an impressive 61.26-38.41 percent win.

Multiple APS Runoffs possible: It’s looking like we’ll have several runoffs. Incumbent Reuben McDaniel and Cynthia Briscoe Brown will face off for one citywide seat. We expected the current APS board chairman to make into the next round, but some, including McDaniel himself, are shocked that the APS parent activist and attorney zipped by Mark Riley and Tom Tidwell on Election Day.

Jason Esteves and Lori James will battle for another citywide post as each claimed a little more than 30 percent of ballots. Steven Lee and Mary Louise Palmer will fight over a close District 5 race and Eshé Collins will go head-to-head with Dell Byrd in District 6’s runoff.

NOTE: We accidentally forgot to include Courtney English in the original post. He’s since been added!