Morning update: ANCs and transit ballot propositions

U Street was again the site of huge crowds after a major historical event for the nation involving an African-American leader. Unlike 1968, however, I don’t believe any shops burned.

California rail ballot propositions are narrowly ahead. 1A is winning with 52% as 83% of precincts have reported. Los Angeles’ subway Measure R has 67.3% (needs 66%) with 90% of precincts reporting. Marin’s rail will be built. BART to San Jose is too close to call. The Overhead Wire has a full roundup. Pro-rail propositions succeeded in Seattle and Milwaukee, but failed in Kansas City and Saint Louis.

Proposition 8 may pass. That would be the heartbreak of the night if so.

Back here in DC, with all regular votes counted but without absentees, here are the interesting ANC races that look decided:

• 1B04 (U Street): With nearly 68% of the vote, Deborah Thomas has apparently unseated Dee Hunter, who was running for Council at-large while also trying to keep his ANC seat. Deborah was heavily backed by some pro-Smart Growth folks in the area.
• 2B07 (GGW’s district in Dupont): Incumbent Phil Carney holds his seat against young challenger Joseph Rojakovick.
• 2B09 (Dupont/U Street): Estrada leads by 110 votes, probably enough to withstand any absentee swings, and should win reelection as well. Still, this was close.
• 2C (Shaw): If Theresa Sule’s 50 vote lead over Barbara Curtis holds, reformers will have a 3-1 majority on the Shaw ANC.
• 3C03 (Woodley Park): Bairstow will bring her pro-Giant, pro-Smart Growth votes to Woodley and the divided Woodley/Cleveland Park ANC.
• 3C05 (Cleveland Park): Leila Afzal’s 92 vote margin is probably enough to hold a win against Darcy Buckley. Ward 3 Smart Growthers were supporting Buckley here.
• 3E (Tenleytown area): Area activists who support retail and apartments along Wisconsin Avenue were rooting for Jonathan Bender in 3E03 and Tom Quinn in 3E04. Bender looks to have won in his open seat, while Quinn wasn’t successful in unseating incumbent Lucy Eldridge.
• 3F04 (Comet Square): Bye, bye Winstead! Tom Whitley got 72% of the vote against the incumbent who tried to stop outdoor ping-pong, outdoor seating by the supermarket, and other signs of life on Connecticut Avenue. (3F05 incumbent Mital Gandhi, whom we profiled, was unopposed in his adjacent seat.)
• 6A06 (H Street): Bill Schultheiss, who’s fighting the proposed Shell at Maryland Avenue, has 55% of the vote and a likely reelection.
• 7D06 (Minnesota/Benning): If her 129-vote lead holds after absentees, Willette Seaward has knocked off Tony Scurry.

I have no idea how many absentee ballots there are, so some of these closer races might flip.

It’ll be Brown and Brown at large (not much of a surprise). Patrick Mara is still neck and neck with write-ins, and we don’t know how many of those will be for Carol Schwartz (probably almost all, but I’m sure there are some miscellaneous votes there). I’ll be very interested to see if Mara beats Schwartz, just for curiosity’s sake. The other interesting question is whether Schwartz plus Mara would have beaten Michael Brown. Of course, not all Schwartz voters would have gone for Mara, but if the combined vote total would have been enough to win, we can wonder what might have happened had Schwartz endorsed Mara.

Later, I’ll dig into results and races in Wards 4 through 8.