COLUMBUS, Ohio – Columbus City Council President Andrew Ginther will square off against either fellow Democrat Zach Scott or Republican Terry Boyd in a November runoff election to determine who becomes mayor of Ohio’s biggest city.
Ginther was far and away the top vote-getter in Tuesday’s nonpartisan mayoral primary but fewer than 150 votes separated Scott and Boyd, a margin likely to trigger an automatic recount.
Ginther captured about 52 percent of the vote.
Scott, the Franklin County Sheriff, and Franklin University professor Boyd both claimed about 18 percent of the vote, with Scott holding the top spot with 8,366 votes to Boyd’s 8,219.
Scott and Ginther had waged a vigorous battle through the campaign and, while watching the returns, Scott sounded like he was ready to continue.
“Mr. Ginther has kind of a failed leadership record, he really does,” he told WBNS 10-TV.
Boyd was unwilling to concede defeat, promising to wait for the results of a recount if one was necessary.
“It wouldn’t be fair to my team, it wouldn’t be fair to all of the volunteers that supported me, it wouldn’t be fair to the over 8,000 citizens who voted for me” to give up, he told 10-TV.
If the margin between Scott and Boyd is equal to a half-percent of the total votes cast or less when the results of the primary are certified by May 26, there will be a recount, Franklin County Board of Elections spokesman Ben Piscitelli said.
Democrat James Ragland finished fourth. There were two write-in candidates.
The men are vying to replace Michael Coleman, a Democrat first elected in 1999. Coleman announced late last year that he would not seek a fifth term.
Michael Stinziano, Michelle Mills, Zach Klein, Jaiza Page, Dimitrious Stanley, John Rush, Besmirah Sharrah, and Ibrahim Sow advanced to the general election in the race for Columbus City Council.
Turnout at the polls was very light, with no countywide issues on the ballot and nothing at all for more than 200,000 voters to vote on, Piscitelli said. He says 56,153 voters, or just over 9 percent of the county’s 606,008 registered voters, cast ballots.