Updated March 7, 2018.
Incumbent Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger sailed to a third term Tuesday night, capturing about 48 percent of the vote to defeat Carina Driscoll and Infinite Culcleasure.
Weinberger, a Democrat, tallied 5,749 votes, compared to 4,155 for the Progressive-backed Driscoll and 1,910 for Culcleasure, an independent, according to unofficial election results provided by the city. Driscoll earned 35 percent of the vote, while Culcleasure picked up 16 percent.
The 11,884 voters far surpassed turnout in 2015, when 7,865 voters cast ballots, and 2012, when 10,129 people showed up at the polls.
Weinberger showed up to an Election Night party at Nectar’s around 8:20 p.m. to chants of “three more years!” Democratic City Councilor Karen Paul, who won her reelection bid in Ward 6, entered to cheers, as did Adam Roof, an independent incumbent in Ward 8 who won his race by 113 votes.
During his victory speech, Weinberger invited his parents up on stage and thanked them for “raising me right.”
“Today’s vote was a test of our commitment over the past six years to strong fiscal management, community vibrancy, responsible growth and investment in new downtown jobs and housing,” Weinberger told his supporters. “I am honored to have served these past two terms and will do all I can to continue to move Burlington forward over the next three years.”
He also gave a tip of the hat to the other candidates.
“I’ve learned from each of them and I’m heading into my next three years as mayor better equipped to serve the Burlington community because of our spirited debate over these past two months,” Weinberger said. “This election represents the best of what democracy looks like: no angry late night tweets, no sharp sticks, but rather committed candidates discussing real issues in a productive debate on a future worth fighting for.”
At his campaign party at Three Needs Taproom & Brewery in the Old North End, Culcleasure said in an interview that he was proud of his team’s effort during the campaign despite the result. He added that Weinberger should “have heard loud and clear that people want to be involved, people want to know what’s going on and not through some glossy ads or through some PAC.”
Does Culcleasure think a single candidate would have dethroned the incumbent?
“Yeah, Carina shouldn’t have run,” Culcleasure said. “I announced first.”
Supporters were enthusiastic that Culcleasure garnered 16 percent of the vote and made the case that he brought out voters who wouldn’t otherwise have participated.
“Miro does not have a mandate,” concluded Culcleasure’s treasurer, Margaret Joyal.
The crowd continued to grow, even after the results came in. By 8:30 p.m. there were roughly 35 people, most of them young, eating pizza, loudly conversing and not paying much attention to the television airing results. Several came donning elaborate handmade signs professing support for Culcleasure, made of cloth and lights.
During a speech of his own, Culcleasure thanked his team, saying “so much integrity right here” as he gestured to the crowd.
“Fuck yeah!” responded one supporter.
“This has been the most important week of my life,” Culcleasure continued, noting that his son, Izra, was born on February 27. Since then, “I’ve been smiling and crying the whole time.”
“We knew that we were the underdogs,” he added.
The crowd cheered loudly when Culcleasure said, “We split the vote!” He pointed to turnout numbers as a sign of success.
“We believed in each other and it was contagious,” he said. “We actually increased participation. We really did win.”
Driscoll held a party at Smitty’s Pub in the New North End. She told supporters that her campaign sent a message that “the status quo is not acceptable.”
“Infinite and I together defeated Miro,” she told the crowd. “I think keeping him under 50 percent sends a clear message to him.”
After her concession speech, Driscoll said she would consider running again, although “three years is a long time.”
She spoke to Seven Days as she sipped a beer near the bar. What kind? “This is a Switchback and I did not drink beer during the entire campaign, so that tonight, I can enjoy this beer. And I am,” she said.
Her mother, Jane O’Meara Sanders, attended the party but stepfather Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was in Washington, D.C. He voted for her, Driscoll said.
The crowd was disappointed in her defeat. “It would have been great to have a woman mayor for the first time,” said Jennifer Ely, a Ward 7 resident who voted for Driscoll and said she is well-informed, inclusive and would collaborate with her staff.
Weinberger “had a lot more money” in the campaign and that probably made a difference, Ely added.
While the defeat was disappointing for many in the crowd, it wasn’t for everyone. Before Driscoll arrived, City Councilor Dave Hartnett (D-North District) popped into Smitty’s for a Corona.
“It’s a tradition after every Town Meeting Day — I always come home to Smitty’s,” he said of the North Avenue watering hole.
It was a “bit awkward” to be there Tuesday given the bar was Driscoll’s election night party site, he said. But Hartnett planned to go to Miro’s party and celebrate the incumbent’s victory. “I’m excited … When you look at the big picture and you look at how far we’ve come in the last five years, it was easy to support Miro,” Hartnett said.
The mayor campaigned hard: “He never takes anything for granted, right from the beginning he ran nervous and that’s a good way to run,” Hartnett said. “He’s a workaholic.”
All three mayoral candidates spent the day visiting the city’s eight polling places, holding signs and chatting with voters. Members of Culcleasure’s campaign decked out a small bus with streamers and signs and cruised the streets, honking and urging passersby to vote.
An hour before the polls closed, Driscoll expressed cautious optimism. “We feel a lot of support. Whether or not it’s enough, we’ll have to see,” Driscoll said after visiting each polling place. “We feel really good about the campaign we ran.”
Burlington voters expressed strong support for incumbents up and down the Town Meeting Day ballot.
In one of the most closely contested races of the day, Roof beat out UVM student Carter Neubieser, a Progressive, in the Ward 8 contest. Roof earned 488 votes to 375 for Neubieser. Turnout was more than double that of the last Ward 8 race, which brought out 325 voters in 2015.
The only new face on Burlington’s city council will be Progressive Brian Pine in Ward 3. Pine, who bested Democrat Lizzie Haskell and independent James Lockridge, will replace Progressive Sara Moore, who did not run for reelection.
Incumbent Ali Dieng (D/P-Ward 7) took 59 percent of the vote to beat James Loop. In the South End, incumbent Democrats Chip Mason and Paul won their races in Wards 5 and 6, respectively. Paul bested Progressive Charles Simpson and Republican Joel FitzGerald with 66 percent of the vote. Mason earned 58 percent of the vote in defeating Progressive challenger Jesse Warren.
Max Tracy (P-Ward 2), Sharon Bushor (I-Ward 1) and the council’s sole Republican Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) all ran uncontested reelection bids.
Related Stories
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
Miro is too arrogant to realize how much he is distrusted and despised by a majority of the city. Otherwise he would have rolled to a win. Instead the ONLY reason he won is because Driscoll and Culcleature split the vote on the Left.
Like Trump, he will misread tonight’s results as some sort of huge mandate for him to continue to bury the city in elite high rise condos and 1%er shopping and dining.
Burlington is committing slow suicide.
Burlington IS heading in the right direction. In spite of some people who will never understand and just don’t take the time to do their homework and find out the truth. They will be the ones to constantly complain about anything and everything. Good Job Mayor for running a clean campaign and congrats on the win. Moving forward and not sitting on a bar stool waiting for the world to pass us by.
This is one heck of a biased article against Driscoll. Not even subtle girls.
Quoting the guy who cost her the win by bleeding off 16% of the vote as saying she shouldn’t have run and letting him give himself credit for turnout? Really?
Then finally getting to Driscoll but barely touching on her or her supporters after glorifying others!? Just going to a city councilor praising Miro. The agenda is not journalism.
Also 48% is not “sailed” to victory, especially for an incumbent. People turned out to get rid of him. Unfortunately the more qualified candidate was spoiled by a niche race. A huge loss for Burlington that could have regained political process that hears needs of all residents while electing a smart, mature person.
I could go on. The language and tilt of the article is Orwellian. D- ladies.
Dear Infinite. Thanks for three more years of Miro. He absolutely could not have done it without you.
AReasonableindependent- You just assume that the 16% that voted for Infinite would have voted for Driscoll. That could not be further from the truth. What would be more reasonable is that the vote would have split and as such Weinberger would have still won. To get 48% of the votes in a three way race is really good. CONGRATS TO THE MAYOR on another victory.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Miro was the only candidate for whom someone wrote a song. It didn’t get enough listens for me to say that it brought a lotta people to the polls, but it does show that there’s more grassroots passion for Miro than his detractors would like to believe.
https://natosongs.com/miro-keep-the-ball-r…
Sanders’s supporters drained votes away from Clinton in 2016 and made Trump president. Now a third party candidate in Burlington drains votes away from a Sanders to bring about her defeat. Funny thing, karma.
Ted Miles is absolutely right. We spent the entire election talking about how Infinite brought new people to the process with a message that resonated. If Infinite doesn’t run, those people aren’t showing up and Miro would’ve won by a single digit margin with over 50%. Stop bashing Infinite because you over rated Carina.
again 7 days and its lazy reporting misses the real story:
Here it is:
MW would have been out if we still had instant runoff voting. – the dems hated instant runoff after kiss won – the same thing might have happened here – CD might very well have pulled it out in round two –
that is a real shame. Why? Because now burlington is saddled for three more years with this neo-con developer in chief who never saw a new building he didn’t like. someday the history of burlinngton will be written and MW’s initial razor thin freak win and this sad election where he undoubtedly benefited from a split vote will be part of the story.
in three more years his damaging legacy will be even more complete – how will a highway running along the waterfront suit you? this guy actually wants to resurrect the circ highway – what is this 1975? smart cities are not looking to build highways on their waterfront
this guy is out to line his pockets and the pockets of his millionaire developer buddies – more big buildings more missed opportunities – a real shame –
ps – of course the rich ladies who own 7 days probably love MW and it sure shows in this article and reporting
To report that Roof won his race over his opponent by 113 votes is cute editorializing – and more to the point it fails to show just how solid his victory was.
He won the race by a more-than 13 percent margin.
Anytime you win by that large a percentage is a good day.
“In one of the most closely contested races of the day, Roof beat out UVM student Carter Neubieser, a Progressive, in the Ward 8 contest. Roof earned 488 votes to 375 for Neubieser.”
The Roof/Neubieser race actually was the LEAST-contested contest, despite your attempts to make it sound as though Roof won a squeaker.
Roof won with 87 percent of the vote.
That’s what we call “sailing to victory,” to quote your description of the mayor’s having won with 48 percent of the vote in the city’s top race.
@tapplinx
“ps – of course the rich ladies who own 7 days probably love MW and it sure shows in this article and reporting”
A little bitter are we! Instant run-off was a failure and that is why the people of Burlington voted to scrap it. Not the Dems or the Republicans or the rich folk but the voters of Burlington!
Take a chill pill pal, relax and enjoy the ride for the next three years.
Miro made some amazing promises in his campaign TV ad about sustainability, livability, & affordability- for a Burlington where a young family can afford a home. Will promises made become promises kept? Just wondering.
Brad D et al, I’m going to take exception to the notion that IRV was a ‘failure.’ As has been seen repeatedly, all over the world, before elections, 90%+ of potential voters say that they understand the logic of IRV; this was true here. In Burlington, IRV did not lead to the hoped-for result for Kurt Wright Apparently the assumption (for some) was that, while Kurt might not be the majority of voters first choice, surely he was manys second choice.
So his supporters (and their ilk) didn’t like the outcome. IRV was taken out of the equation. Okay, fine.
Time for Kurt to run, again. In a straight up, winner-takes-all contest, again, Kurt lostbig time. Meanwhile, Burlington has become even less R in the ensuing years.
I’m not trying to defend the Kiss administration (it is, I think beyond defense). But Kiss was put in place because IRV represented the opinion of BTV’s voters, if not about their candidate of choice, but about their candidate of un-choice: the sole Republican.
We’ll never know the outcome had yesterday’s 3-way race been IRV-format. Mr. Colclusure would have been eliminated in the first round. Despite the fact that, apparently, he thinks that being first in the race means he was somehow entitled to being Mayor Wienberger’s sole challenger.
Had he been strategic, exited the race, and worked to defeat Miro, Mr. Cloclusure could have been been part of a coalition (anti F-35; anti “tall-mall”; anti development; pro community engagement; something about the airport parking garage, etc.). This coalition could have coalesced, organized, tried to unseat a mayor with somewhat thin and wobbly support.
No doubt Miro knew (and knows) this. It tends to be the case (remember Peter Clavelle?) But Miro doggedly pursued a goal (winning) and won.
Perhaps Carinna needs to look at it this way, by a vote of almost 2 to 1, the people did not want Carrina as mayor
Or maybe the mayor should look at it this way… more people voted against him than voted for him… I’m no fan of the mayor, but that much is mathematically clear… he is already spinning it as some sort of widespread affirmation… but it ain’t… the writing is on the wall for him… fewer votes in each of elections… he won’t withstand a united opposition candidacy the next time… I am sure he will try and force through any number of big projects in the next three years and make sure that the pro growth model is made permanent in the form based code he touts and which is manna from heaven for developers… and yes… this article seemed a bit biased… but for a publication that doesn’t take an editorial stand on anything, you might figure that their commercial bread is being buttered somehow… I know the mayor spent $1800 bucks in ads in 7D as published in the most recent campaign disclosures… perhaps the other candidates spent as well… it’s not uncommon… who spent more?… would a pro growth/pro business mayor mean more businesses needing more advertising in a cool and hip weekly??… rumor has it is that if you want a Daysie, you need to spend for ads… or it makes it easier… so why would this be any different?… not saying it happens… just asking the question…