Healy Wins on First Ballot
By Jon Whiten • May 12th, 2009 • Category: Blog, Politics
With absentee and provisional ballots still yet to be counted, Mayor Jerramiah Healy has won reelection, nearly doubling the vote of his closest opponent, Lou Manzo.
With 30,657 votes cast, Healy has received a 52.9 percent share, while Manzo has received 26.3 percent. Harvey Smith (12.9 percent), Dan Levin (5.6 percent) and Phil Webb (2.2 percent) round out the field.
“I’m a little disappointed,” Harvey Smith said at his Monticello Avenue campaign headquarters. “We did the best we could with the resources we had.”
At his campaign’s party at Puccini’s, Manzo said “voter apathy” led to the low turnout for the municipal election. “People give up because they don’t think they can beat a machine,” he said.
Still, he pinned his hopes on his City Council candidates, several of whom look to be headed to a June 9 runoff.
“Hopefully we’ll have a more independent council,” he said. When asked if he would run for mayor a sixth time, Manzo laughed and said he will definitely keep working with his Office of Public Advocacy.
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Jon Whiten is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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