Turnout in southeast suburbs drives Rickenmann win in Columbia election
A handful of precincts in Columbia’s suburban southeast communities were key in deciding the city’s Nov. 16 mayoral election, an analysis by The State found.
Six precincts, all predominantly white and concentrated near the suburbs outside of Fort Jackson and the Forest Acres business corridor, drove the results, seeing the highest turnout in the city and showing up overwhelmingly for Daniel Rickenmann, a businessman and longtime council member.
Those precincts, covering the area near Lake Katherine, all went for Rickenmann by big margins — he won by at least 400 votes in all of them. In Ward 25, where Rickenmann saw his largest victory, he won by more than 700 ballots.
Of the 10,546 people who voted for Rickenmann, more than 4,000 live in those six precincts. Rickenmann defeated Tameika Isaac Devine in the runoff by about 800 votes. The city has 77 total precincts.
Rickenmann nearly ran away with the Nov. 2 general election, scoring 44% of the vote, more than ten points ahead of his competitor, attorney and longtime council member Devine. But with no candidate earning more than 50%, the contest went to a runoff.
The State’s analysis found stark geographic and racial divisions in who voters supported Nov. 16., and who turned out to vote.
Turnout in nine precincts topped 45% — and eight went to Rickenmann. The other one was Westminster, where only two of the three voters eligible to vote in Columbia cast ballots. Both voted for Devine.
Rickenmann also won the 10 precincts where the most overall votes were cast. Meanwhile, half of Devine’s votes came from precincts with turnout below 25%.
Beyond the six precincts with the heaviest turnout, Rickenmann saw concentrated support in the suburban southeast. Devine saw broader support in low turnout areas, with strength near Williams-Brice Stadium and downtown.
There was also a clear racial split. Devine, who is Black, won 39 of 41 majority non-white precincts. In just those precincts, she received nearly 4,000 more votes than Rickenmann.
In the two that Rickenmann won, the percentages of white and non-white registered voters are nearly even. His top performing precincts have between 2% and 6% nonwhite registered voters — the lowest diversity in the city.
Rickenmann, who is white, also won all but nine of the 32 majority white precincts. A 33rd majority white precinct had no voters.
Uneven participation might be driven by voter fatigue, or frustration accessing the polls, said Columbia League of Women Voters president Lady June Cole.
“I think there is this fatigue quite truthfully, partially from COVID, and I think people are anxious about the times,” Cole said.
About 20,000 people cast a ballot in the Nov. 16 runoff election — about 1,000 more than voted in the general election Nov. 2. That translates to about a 26% voter turnout.
Voter turnout for the mayor’s race was low compared to turnout for statewide and presidential races, but it was comparable to Mayor Steve Benjamin’s first race in 2010. Benjamin, who won that election and was reelected twice, didn’t seek reelection this year.
Roughly 17,000 people cast a ballot in that race — approximately 26% of the vote at the time.
Still, a third of registered voters today are in areas where 20% or fewer residents voted on Nov. 16.
Cole said being able to get out the vote in certain areas likely affected the vote’s outcome.
“I do think that the manner in which a campaign is funded, I think the platform that a candidate presents, has a lot to do with the turnout,” she said.
Rickenmann raised more than $404,000, more than any other candidate. Devine raised $367,890.
Initially, four candidates sought the mayor’s seat in the general election held Nov. 2. In third place was a former advisor to Steve Benjamin, Sam Johnson.
During the Nov. 2 election, Johnson won only two precincts and trailed Devine by about 1,000 votes.
When it came time for voters to again take to the polls two weeks later, the majority of Johnson’s votes went to the councilwoman, according to The State’s analysis of precinct results.
For example, in North Columbia’s Greenview precinct, which is 99% non-white, Devine received 295 votes on Nov. 2 and Johnson received 200. Two weeks later, Devine received 494 votes. Rickenmann gained just 10 votes between the two elections, going from 14 Nov. 2 to 26 Nov 16 in that precinct.
Johnson, who endorsed Devine in the runoff, pushed back on the notion that they were competing for the same audience, however.
“I think that makes an assumption (that) a particular voter is going to vote a certain way,” he said, but acknowledged he and Devine shared some elements of their platforms that likely connected with voters in the same parts of the city.
Devine had nearly 70% of the votes cast in the 63 precincts outside of where Rickenmann saw the most success. (By the same token, Rickenman had more than 70% of the vote in those 15 precincts.)
“What you’re looking at at any given point, for some people there’s an issue with the roads, you know, for others public transportation is a challenge. You’ll find some (say) ‘well, we don’t have a local grocery store within walking distance. ‘ And you know, you’ve got a number of those types of variables that depending upon the location, the people in those communities are going to have different issues that they want to have addressed,” Cole said.
Rickenmann, who is a council member for Columbia’s District 4, on the eastern part of the city, did well in his district and District 3.
Johnson cautioned against simplifying the divide to a racial one.
Despite Devine’s clear victory among non-white voters, the votes cast in those precincts made up roughly 31% of the total vote. That support wasn’t enough to overcome Rickenmann’s hold on the southeast.
“The issues there are very different,” Johnson said.
Food insecurity, access to medical care and affordable housing are primary concerns in the areas that came out strongly for Devine. In the areas Rickenmann won, economic development and business investment are king.
“There’s certainly a totally different set of issues that are represented in that divide,” Johnson said.
This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 10:24 AM.
