Finkam won 36% of the primary vote versus 32% each for Woody Rider and Fred Glynn. Her 4,595 vote total was just 400 higher than her two opponents. Finkam and Rider are experienced city council persons who have mostly supported the pro-growth, pro-density, pro-investment, pro-debt, pro-quality of life policies of 28-year mayor Jim Brainard. The mayor has been able to pursue a moderate, activist strategy as a Republican in this high income, growing suburb because he has delivered positive results. Finkam emphasized transparency and governance improvements in her campaign. Glynn campaigned and voted as a “fiscal conservative”, previously winning district elections for county council but losing elections for mayor and state representative. Rider was endorsed by Mayor Brainard and mostly campaigned on a continuation of the mayor’s policies, even though he had opposed the mayor on a number of issues historically.

Carmel has 63 precincts. Finkam won 25 while Rider and Glynn each won 19. This was a true three-way election. Finkam exceeded the neutral one-third of the vote in her winning precincts by 480 votes while Glynn beat the 33.3% benchmark by 323 votes and Rider gained 158 net votes in his winning precincts. In her 25 winning precincts, Finkam mostly pulled extra votes from Glynn. In Glynn’s winning precincts he earned 284 votes above the neutral level, reducing Rider’s votes by 188, but Finkam’s by just 96. In Rider’s winning precincts he earned an extra 193 votes, reducing Glynn’s votes by 158 and Finkam’s by just 34. To summarize, Finkam won the most precincts, and she won a few extra votes in the precincts that she did win. She and Rider both won votes from Glynn while Glynn mainly took votes from Rider.

Finkam enjoyed an average winning margin of 29 votes in her winning precincts compared with 23 for Glynn and 16 for Rider.

Finkam’s top 10 winning precincts delivered 518 extra votes versus 430 for Glynn’s top 10 and 238 for Rider’s top 10.

Two measures of “clearly winning” precincts mostly provide the same results. I used the standard deviation of percentage votes earned and the standard deviation of votes won above the one-third expected level to determine “clear” precinct winners.

Finkam clearly won 12 precincts, Glynn 10 precincts and Rider 5 precincts. Finkam clearly lost just 5 precincts while Gynn lost 12 and Rider lost 9. On a net basis, Finkam clearly won 7 precincts, Glynn lost 2 and Rider lost 4.

In a close 3-way race, two candidates can win more than one-third of the votes. Carmel has 63 precincts so 21 is the minimum required for a win. Finkam earned at least one-third of the votes in 39 precincts compared with Rider’s 26 and Glynn’s 24.

Finkam had the fewest 3rd place finishes, losing 17 districts, compared with 21 for Rider and 25 for Glynn.

Another way to slice the vote is to compare the number of votes versus a neutral 33.3% finish. The distribution of votes at the precinct level points to 15 extra or short votes as a material win or loss. Finkam earned a dozen such wins and just 4 losses by this measure. The net vote result in these precincts was 297, indicating that vote differences in just one-fourth of the precincts delivered her win. Glynn had 8 positive and 12 negative precincts with a net loss of 114 votes. Rider had 3 winning and 10 losing precincts, resulting in a loss of 142 votes.

Finkam’s precinct votes were most opposed to Glynn’s, with a negative correlation (R) of -0.60. Her correlation with Rider was a much lower -0.39. Glynn and Rider reported a middle level correlation of -0.52.

Rider’s 5 clearly winning precincts were broadly scattered. Foster Grove, Northwood Hills, Windemere, Lennox Trace and Westfield. He was competitive in most precincts but did not have a clear winning pattern.

Glynn leveraged his strengths around his home and campaign history near 106th and Keystone. He strongly won 7 precincts in this area: Orchard Park, The Woodlands, Holaday Hills and Dales, Homeplace, College Plaza, Chesterton and Carolina Commons. He also won 3 older areas of Carmel: west of Clay Terrace, 136th/Guilford = Old Meridian/Main Street and Thistlewood at 136th/Spring Mill.

Finkam’s strength was in the newer and wealthier areas north of Main Street (131st Street). She won Cool Creek North and Foster Ridge in the central area of Carmel. On the west side, she won Hunter’s Knoll, Spring Mill Ponds, Spring Mill Streams, Spring Mill Farms and Kingsborough. On the east side she won Plum Creek Farms, Avian Way, Settlers Ridge, Cherry Tree Grove, Briarwood and Legacy at 146th/River Road.

Carmel’s voting precincts can be divided into 9 geographical areas using 116th and 131st/Main Street to divide vertically and Spring Mill Road and Keystone/Carey Road to divide horizontally. By this split, Finkam won 4 regions (W, N, NE and NW), Glynn won 4 regions (C, S, SE and SW) and Rider won a single region (E). Finkam won a very strong 44% of the vote in the northeast, gaining 258 votes, mostly at the expense of Glynn. She also won a solid 39% in the northwest, winning 65 votes, mostly from Glynn. Glynn had a strong showing in his home South area, earning 46% and 142 votes, but his advantage was divided between lost votes by Finkam and Rider. He also earned a strong 39% share in the Southeast, but these extra 58 votes were mostly taken from Rider. Glynn had small wins in the Central district, taking 17 votes from Finkam and in the Southwest district, capturing 26 votes from Rider. Finkam’s fourth winning district mainly took 38 votes from Glynn. Rider’s single winning district was a near tie with Finkam, taking a total of 92 votes from Glynn.

Overall turnout was just 19.7% in Carmel in this municipal election. 86% of voters cast ballots for the Republican mayor’s race. This makes the ratio of Republican primary voters to registered voters just 16.4%, or one out of six registered residents.

Turnout in the precincts won by Finkam, Rider and Gynn varied materially from 18.3% to 16.0% to 14.2%, respectively. If the precincts all had 16.4% Republican primary voter turnout, Finkam would have lost 62 votes and Glynn would have earned 76 additonal votes, a small fraction of the 400 vote margin.

Rider and Finkam together won 68% of the vote, confirming that two-thirds of Carmel voters generally approve of the retiring mayor’s general strategy and policies. Finkam was able to solidly convince the northern subdevelopment residents that she would do a better job than Woody Rider.

https://www.hamiltoncounty.in.gov/DocumentCenter/View/18494/2023-Primary-Election-Unofficial-Office-Detail?bidId=

https://www.hamiltoncounty.in.gov/DocumentCenter/View/18495/2023-Primary-Election-Unofficial-Turnout?bidId=

Democrat Miles Nelson was elected to the city council in 2019. He is running for mayor this year. Carmel has become more Democratic in the last 20 years. I don’t think that a majority of Carmel voters will reject the path of the last 3 decades.

Conservative, suburban, small town Indiana Carmel elected Jane Reiman and Dottie Hancock as women mayors from 1980-1992. I think that Sue Finkam gets a small advantage as a woman candidate in this environment.