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Cohen holds lead over Cordle in race for Annapolis mayor

Published 11/03/09

Democratic candidate Josh Cohen holds a slim 235 vote lead over his Republican rival, Dave Cordle, with all 16 of the city’s precincts reporting, unofficial results from the city show.

Shannon Lee Zirkle — The Capital

Democratic candidate Josh Cohen gives a victory speech while surrounded by his supporters Tuesday, at Loews Annapolis Hotel.

SLIDESHOW

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Cohen has 3,729 votes while Cordle has 3,494. Independent challenger Chris Fox trails with 1,056.

"Today Annapolis voters sent a clear message that they want to raise the bar in City Hall," said Cohen, who promised to hire professional city manager and reign in spending.

Cordle said tonight he would wait to concede until he saw the official results and absentee ballot counts on Thusday.

"We are going to hold off and see what happens," he said. "Should Josh be the one that prevails, I will offer my support."

In the race for City Council, the Democratic candidates appeared to have secured all five of the contested seats, according to unofficial returns:

Ward 3: Incumbent Classie Hoyle, a Democrat, has 400 votes to 270 for Republican Scott Bowling.
Ward 5: Democrat Mathew Silverman has 775 votes to 533 for Republican James Conley.
Ward 6: Democrat Kenneth Kirby has 304 votes to 208 for Republican Gregory A. Stiverson.
Ward 7: Ian Pfeiffer, a Democrat, has 492 votes to 439 for Republican Jennifer Monteith.
Ward 8: Incumbent Ross Arnett, a Democrat, has 757 votes to 655 for Republican Rockeford Toews.

In uncontested races for alderman, the results were:

Ward 1: Incumbent Richard Israel, a Democrat, got 1,097 votes.
Ward 2: Republican Fred Paone has 955 votes.
Ward 4: Democrat Sheila Finlayson got 468 votes.

"It's clear that voters wanted to change direction," Cohen said, referring to the day's Democratic victories.

Cohen, a former alderman and current member of the County Council, came in second in the Democratic primary Sept. 15 to Zina Pierre, who withdrew days later after details about Pierre's rocky financial history emerged as well as questions about her residency.

The Annapolis Democratic Central Committee named Cohen, 36, a former alderman who now serves on the County Council, as her replacement.

A victory by Cohen would leave Cordle, 51, out of city politics once the candidates are sworn in in December. He favored both a city-manager form of government as well as a tax cap, two measures that did not make it on the general election ballot.

Cordle, who is the chief investigator in the State Attorney's Office, currently represents Ward 5 on the City Council. He won Ward 5 tonight with 771 votes compared to 435 for Cohen and 141 for Fox.

Cordle also took downtown Ward 1 by a slim margin of 33 votes, in which Fox, a downtown pub co-owner, also had his best showing of all eight wards. Cordle also took Ward 8, the Eastport area which is Cohen's home turf.

Cohen, however, took wards 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 on his way to apparent victory.

The mayoral candidates are running to replace Ellen O. Moyer, who cannot run again due to term limits.

The results for the City Council, though unofficial, would give Democrats control of seven of the eight seats. Citywide, there also were 16 write-in votes, including one for mayor. Finlayson leads all the aldermanic write-in votes with eight, two more than for Israel.

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Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. -10

I'm disappointed - 2009-11-03 23:33:35

Mr. Cordle would have made a great mayor.

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William Cooke - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Neutral

JOSH COHEN !!!! - 2009-11-03 23:03:12

Great win . . . Great for Annapolis.

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Paul Richards - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Neutral

So is this when - 2009-11-03 22:15:33

we unload the bad info about Cohen. Oh,thats right, only the ADCC plays by those rules.

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Peter Dennis - Annapolis, MD - Karma: Excellent

This a dark day - 2009-11-03 21:48:38

Congratualtions Cohen.

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Fred Shubbie - , - Karma: Terrible

Fox - 2009-11-03 21:42:16

Fox is soon going to be declared the winner : ) .

But let us never forget that Cohen was not Chosen by the people to run and the amount of voted for Cordle is proff of that . Zina was the one chose and would have won against Cordle by a sliding of the land.

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Fred Shubbie - , - Karma: Terrible

Nice reporting - 2009-11-03 21:27:52

They just put this up, but hello, at least 20 minutes ago the board of elections posted results from all 16 polling places. Talk about miling the story for as long as possible to keep readers coming back. Cohen 3729, Cordle 3494, and Fox 1056, and one write in vote.

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E. A. - SOCO, MD - Karma: Neutral

Cohen Won! - 2009-11-03 21:27:47

The city website results have Cohen as the unofficial winner by 200 some odd votes. After a short rest, he'll begin his campaign for the State Legislature.

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Fred Bralman - Arnold, Md - Karma: Excellent