It’s official: Mayor Whipple will be on November ballot with Wu. Here’s final vote totals

Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple secured a slot on the November ballot Thursday afternoon after a too-close-to-call-on-election-night race to decide who will appear on the ballot with first-place finisher Lily Wu.

Whipple edged out City Council member Bryan Frye by 705 votes in the official results, which were certified Thursday afternoon. The incumbent led Frye by 398 votes on Election Night but additional mail-in votes and provisional ballots widened that margin.

Wu finished in first place with 12,217 votes, a 2,442-vote advantage over Whipple.

Thursday’s official results provided additional insight into how candidates performed among Election Day, early in-person, advance by-mail and provisional voters.

Wu led in three out of the four categories, with Whipple leading among advance by-mail voters 2,976 to Wu’s 2,594. Among people who voted on Election Day, Whipple placed third, getting 4,965 votes to Wu’s 7,409 and Frye’s 6,603.

Frye’s bid for mayor appeared to be hampered by poor support from advance mail voters. He placed fourth among mail-in voters with 994 votes, getting just over half of the mail-in voters as Save Century II founder Celeste Racette’s 1,843.

The Sedgwick County Commission certified primary election results at a 4 p.m. meeting on Thursday after convening earlier that morning to determine which provisional ballots should be counted and which should be thrown out.

Whipple maintained a 610-vote lead over City Council member Bryan Frye going into the final tally. Wu received 12,000 votes to Whipple’s 9,578 and Frye’s 8,968 before provisional ballots were tabulated.

Final results, Wichita mayor primary

Lily Wu: 12,217

Brandon Whipple: 9,775

Bryan Frye: 9,070

Celeste Racette: 6,831

Jared Cerullo: 1,870

Shelia Davis (Rainman): 254

Julie Rose Stroud: 246

Tom Kane: 220

Anthony Gallardo: 182

This story was originally published August 10, 2023 at 1:30 PM.