The results are in! I offer my decidedly un-expert opinion on all of them below. Here are my previous comments on the field.

In each race, the top two candidates advance to the general election. I list percentages followed by actual vote total.

Mayor

Emily Larson 67.32 (5,456)

Chuck Horton 18.57 (1,505)

Howie Hanson 9.03 (732)

James Mattson 2.18 (177)

John Socha 1.37 (111)

John Howard Evans .63 (51)

Thomas Cooper .56 (45)

Robert Schieve .33 (27)

We’ll start with the most predictable of all the races, where Emily Larson steamrolled a field with a lot of bodies but very little in the way of actual competition. Anyone who might have been a remote threat to her stood aside, and for all the people involved, there has been very little in the way of genuine debate or serious alternative visions for the future of Duluth. Don Ness’s heir apparent should sail on to another victory in November.

Her opponent in the general election is Chuck Horton, whom I considered the most interesting of the bunch. He’s a bit scattershot and perhaps a little paranoid, but he speaks strongly on issues that others don’t, and is a fairly accurate spokesman for a small but significant slice of the Duluth electorate. Howie Hanson, the only other household name here, came in a distant third. Vague and sporadically directed bluster, it turns out, is not a solid campaign strategy. No one else had much of a prayer of making a name for himself.

City Council District 5

Jay Fosle (I) 56.08 (945)

Janet Kennedy 39.82 (671)

Allan Beaulier 2.61 (44)

Derrick Ellis 1.48 (25)

There are six Council seats up for grabs in the election this fall, but only one required a primary, and I’d suspect it’s also the only one with a realistic chance of shaking up the Council’s political composition. With tonight’s results, however, even that may be a long shot. Incumbent Jay Fosle, the often cantankerous west side conservative, put up a very solid primary showing. He has a well-honed feel for that populist vein that Horton nursed into a spot in the mayoral general election, and his district is in the part of the city most receptive to that message. He’s a very genuine representative of west side political sentiment, and is now in line for a third term. Janet Kennedy has the potential to be a strong opponent, but her campaign will need to pick up considerable ground to overcome a 16-point gap. The other two people in this primary put up negligible vote totals, so she can’t just poach their supporters; instead, she’ll have to turn out the vote and probably convince a few Fosle supporters. It will be an uphill battle.

School Board At-Large

Renee Van Nett 44.70 (3,351)

Alanna Oswald 32.51 (2,437)

Jim Unden 22.79 (1,708)

All three candidates for this open seat had respectable showings here, with Renee Van Nett, the candidate endorsed by the establishment, as the current frontrunner. Still, it’s not impossible to see a path to victory for Alanna Oswald, and if she can pick up the Unden votes and turn out more people in November, it could be a very tight race. This election, which I’ve discussed here, could well swing the composition of the school board.

School Board District 2

David Kirby 56.85 (1,044)

Charles Obije 25.90 (461)

Jane Hammerstrom Hoffman 15.45 (275)

Kirby, another establishment-endorsed candidate, doubled up the opposition in this district, and looks fairly safe to win a seat on the Board. This is the district in the city most likely to support public education at any cost, and was always going to be the most difficult of the three races for anyone outside of the Board majority’s consensus to make any headway. Objie now faces long odds here.

Big picture school board notes: I’d break down the six remaining candidates (including the two in District 3, Nora Sandstad and Loren Martell) into three categories. I see one, Martell, as a likely ally for the current minority of Harry Welty and Art Johnston. Two, Van Nett and Kirby, seem to have little interest in talking to Welty or Johnston and are thus likely allies for the current majority. Three—Sandstad, Oswald, and Obije—are trying to stake out the middle ground. If the primary results hold in the general election, the current majority will retain at least four seats, and we can expect more of the same, albeit with maybe a little less margin for error: the majority imposes its will while the minority makes a lot of angry noise. This strikes me as the most likely outcome, and not a terribly desirable one for anyone who wants to see any change in the tenor of the board.

Things get more interesting if either Obije or Oswald—more likely Oswald—can turn around the primary results. An Oswald win would give the minority a path to electoral victory, albeit far from a guaranteed one, and might force the board members into genuine debate and recognition that they can’t simply fall back on their past positions if they want to get anything done. Yes, there’s a risk that this could encourage yet more infighting, but given the track record of the past few years, I’d be willing to take that chance. On to November.