Election shocker: Sarah Lopez has nearly caught Michael O’Donnell; race a dead heat
Sedgwick County Democratic challenger Sarah Lopez has made up virtually all of incumbent County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell’s election-night lead, making the race a dead heat with many ballots left to count.
O’Donnell has announced he’ll resign the seat even if he wins, but had urged Republican voters to vote for him anyway so the seat would stay in GOP hands.
He led on election night by 576 votes, but as later-arriving mail ballots are counted at the election office, that lead has now dwindled to a mere 32 votes.
For Lopez, it’s been a roller-coaster. She was fairly confident going into election night and led most of the way until a final update showed her down more than 500.
“It was a hard feeling,” she said. “The hardest part for me, honestly, was my son was just devastated and as his mom, that was horrible to watch.”
She didn’t concede the race Tuesday night because “It’s just a weird year” and she knew there was greatly increased interest in mail voting to avoid exposure to the coronavirus causing the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Lopez said she feels “hopeful and optimistic,” but isn’t taking anything for granted. “I don’t expect anything, but we’re definitely in a better spot today than what we were election night.”
It completely shakes up the political picture.
If Lopez wins, she’ll simply take the seat when O’Donnell’s term expires. She’d join Lacey Cruse, becoming the second Democrat and woman on the five-member commission.
If O’Donnell hangs on, then about two dozen Republican precinct committee men and women would choose his replacement.
Anticipating the large election-night lead would hold, at least five Republican candidates have announced intentions to run if there’s a mini-election for O’Donnell’s office.
That list includes Wichita City Council member Jeff Blubaugh; state Rep. Nick Hoheisel; Kathleen Garrison, who finished second to O’Donnell in the August Republican primary for the seat; Cindy Miles, who ran third in the primary; and Jared Cerullo, a former TV reporter.
Lopez made up ground mainly from mail ballots delivered in person, said Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman.
“We really got hammered with ballots dropped off at polling places and drop boxes,” she said in a written message on Facebook on Thursday. “While we processed some of those in yesterday’s update, most of today’s are those.”
It wasn’t immediately known how many ballots remain to be counted, but there are enough to swing the race in either direction.
Provisional ballots are yet to be counted and by law, the election office counts all votes postmarked by Tuesday and received by Friday.
“We still have ballots that we are counting by hand to report tomorrow,” Lehman said. “Those take a very long time and I have not stopped the counting process to find out exactly how many there are.”
Blubaugh was asked to serve on the canvassing board that will certify the election Nov. 13. But he said Thursday night he’ll recuse himself because of his interest in the commission seat if it becomes available.
“First and foremost my priority remains to ensure the will of the voters is followed and no decisions are made until all voters are counted and both political parties are in acceptance of the results,” he said.
Miles, who announced her interest in O’Donnell’s seat after finishing third in the Republican primary behind O’Donnell and Garrison, said she wasn’t surprised that Lopez is closing in.
“Honestly, I was more surprised that she didn’t initially take it on election night,” Miles said. “I thought she would win easily because of all of O’Donnell’s problems.”
O’Donnell has been under fire for his role in a 2019 smear video that falsely accused Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple of sexually harassing college-age Capitol interns while he was a state representative.
O’Donnell was part of a team tied to the attack ad that was launched from behind the shield of an anonymous New Mexico shell company.
The video was an outside effort to boost the campaign of then-Mayor Jeff Longwell.
O’Donnell’s campaign was roiled by a secretly made audio recording, released 11 days before the election, that captured O’Donnell plotting with state Rep. Michael Capps and Wichita City Council member James Clendenin to cover up their role in the false attack ad and instead frame Sedgwick County Republican Party Chairman Dalton Glasscock.
O’Donnell was requested to resign by his four fellow commissioners — three of them Republicans — as well as the Sedgwick County Republican Party and U.S. Rep. Ron Estes, R-Wichita.
On Saturday he heeded those calls, but urged voters to mark their ballots for him anyway in an effort to salvage the seat on the commission for the Republican Party.
This story was originally published November 5, 2020 at 7:27 PM.
