Hunter awaits the election results at The Penny Pub on Fayette Street.
Conservative Party candidate Ian Hunter has lost to incumbent Democrat Stephanie Miner in the race for Syracuse mayor.
“I didn’t lose,” Hunter said after the unofficial vote tally assured his defeat. “Citizens in Syracuse lost because they weren’t paying attention.”
As of 10:35 p.m., with almost 92 percent of the polls reporting, Hunter has unofficially lost with only 15 percent of the vote to Miner’s 68 percent. In the unofficial vote count from the Onondaga County Board of elections website, Hunter had 2,119 votes to Miner’s 9,397. Green Party candidate Kevin Bott had 2,054 votes, or about 15 percent, nearly tying him with Hunter.
Hunter and Bott were running to unseat Miner, who has been mayor since 2010.
In terms of voter enrollment, Hunter was at a severe disadvantage in this election. Of the 71,014 registered voters in the city of Syracuse, registered Democrats outnumber registered Conservatives by a monstrous total of 38,813 to 665.
In terms of campaign financing, he was also far behind Miner. As of Nov. 5, Hunter had not reported any campaign finances to the New York State Board of Elections. Hunter acknowledges that he’s raised about $1,000. But he’s unsure of the exact amount, he said. That left him trailing behind Miner, who had $166,144 left to spend as of Election Day.
Hunter has a long political history in the city and county. He ran for and lost races for Syracuse Common Council in the late ‘70s and for a seat on the Onondaga County Legislature in 1995.
In his non-political life, Hunter works as project manager for Last Chance Recycling, owned by his wife Joy, in DeWitt. He also runs a roofing company, Taberg Roofing Inc.
At the polls on Tuesday, Hunter and his wife voted at 8:15 a.m. at the Hillside Work Scholarship Connection building on East Avenue, one block away from his Candee Avenue home. He was optimistic after voting. “I think I’m going to do very well,” he said.
Also at the Hillside polling station, Marilyn Levy cast her vote for mayor minutes after Hunter. Levy voted for the Democratic Mayor Miner despite being Republican. Miner’s incumbency factored into her decision, she said. “She seems to be doing a good job,” she said, adding that she didn’t know much about Hunter.
Democratic Syracuse Councilor At-Large Jean Kessner, voting at the Edwin First United Methodist Church on Euclid Avenue, declined to say who she voted for. But Hunter’s biggest strength as a candidate is his honesty, she said. “He just tells it like he sees it,” she said.
But not every voter was happy with how Hunter says things, like Paul Omilanowicz of Syracuse. “I didn’t like some of the verbiage that he used in his candidacy,” Omilanowicz said.
Election night, Hunter gathered with a few friends at The Penny Pub on Fayette Street. Eating molasses-bacon spiced popcorn and drinking Island Cola, Hunter showed no visible emotion at the news of his defeat. “I didn’t think I was going to win,” he said. “My goal was to educate people and give them some issues to think about. But they weren’t listening.”
Going forward, Hunter said he plans to sell his recycling company, retire and take time off to go to Florida and meet his new granddaughter. He will not run for mayor in the next election, he said. “It was fun,” he said. “But now I go home to my family and life goes on.”
(John Tummino is a junior with dual majors in broadcast and digital journalism and political science.)
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