Covington vote results offer a sounding on November

COVINGTON, Ky. - Covington City Commissioners Sherry Carran and Steve Casper will face each other in November in the Covington mayor’s race.

Voters chose the two to advance in Tuesday’s non-partisan primary election, rejecting Alyssa Dara McDowell whose name was on the ballot but whose candidacy seemed up in the air after reports she had pulled out but never officially removed her name from the ballot.

Carran took 47.5 percent of the vote or 1,260 votes to Casper’s 40 percent or 1,061 votes in the race to see who will ultimately replace current Mayor Chuck Scheper who leaves office at the end of this year. McDowell had 12.3 percent or 328 votes in Tuesday’s balloting.

While 10 candidates’ names appeared on the ballot for seats on Covington’s city commission, only eight were still in the contest Tuesday after Shawn Masters, who served two terms on the commission, and Matt Dressman dropped out of the race in April. Signs posted at Covington polling places informed voters of their withdrawals.

As a result of the two dropping out of the race, all eight remaining candidates advance to the General Election in November when four will be chosen at-large to sit on the next commission.

Still, Tuesday’s vote count does offer a sounding as to where the commission candidates stand at this point in the race. Here’s how the commission candidates finished:

Steve Frank had 17.6 percent or 1,546 votes; Michelle Williams drew 13.8 percent or 1,219 votes; Chuck Eilerman had 13.1 percent or 1,161 votes; Mildred M. Rains had 11.8 percent or 1,047 votes; Ed Faulkner had 11.1 percent or 987 votes; Greg Paeth had 10.1 percent or 899 votes; Roger Hamilton had 5.23 percent or 462 votes; and Neil Gilreath had 4.62 percent or 408 votes.

Even though they had withdrawn from the race, Masters had 6.83 percent of the votes or 603 votes and Dressman took 5.62 percent of the votes or 496 votes.