By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

Patti Smith’s first political position is to represent South Portland residents in District 2, where, according to unofficial results from city clerk Susan Mooney, more than 7,500 residents cast their vote in her favor on Tuesday.

“I’m very excited and obviously super grateful,” she said. “Hopefully I can be a good representative for residents.”

Smith said she was surprised to learn she receive nearly twice the amount of votes of her opponant Steve Onos, who received little more than 4,200 votes. 

“I’m blown away it’s that big of a lead,” she said. “At the local level you never really know until it’s over.”

District 2 wasn’t the only one with a wide margin between candidates; City Councilor James Hughes defended his District 5 seat with nearly 7,300 votes compared to Mark Gandolfo’s 4,000. 

Thomas Coward will fill the District 1 seat left vacant by former mayor Claude Morgan after receiving nearly 11,000 votes in his uncontested campaign.

At the school board level, Ralph Baxter Jr. and Karen Callaghan will fill two at large seats. Callaghan received the most votes – nearly 7,000 – and Baxter received approximately 6,000 while candidates Jay Allen and Kendall Fassett both received less than 3,300 apiece. According to unofficial results on Tuesday, more than 8,500 voters left the school board portion of their ballot blank.

According to early estimates by the city clerk’s office, more than 14,300 out of approximately 17,700 voters participated in the election, an 80 percent turnout.

Cape Elizabeth Town Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta will retain her seat for the fourth time after more than 3,500 votes from residents. 

“I appreciate the strong vote of confidence,” she said “We’ll have to see how things go in what I think is going to be a challenging year for the town.”

Kayatta said she spent some of her Tuesday at the poles with David Sherman, another candidate for town council she said she had known before the race. Sherman, who received more than 2,600 votes, will fill the seat left vacant by Cynthia Dill, who won her re-election race for the House District 121. One council seat remains to be filled, vacated by former council chairman Mary Ann Lynch, who stepped down from her position to be in compliance with her new job with the Maine Court System.

At the school board level, Linda Winker received approximately 800 more votes than Piotr Stamieszkin for her appointment and Mary Townsend beat both Fredric Sturtevant and Katherine Ray by receiving more than 3,750 votes.

According to unofficial election results, nearly 6,500 of 8,000 registered voters in Cape Elizabeth cast their ballots either by absentee or in person, approximately a 76 percent turnout.

On Tuesday, residents in Cape Elizabeth and South Portland followed the nation in their preference for Barack Obama as the next president. In both municipalities, Barack received nearly twice the amount of votes cast for republican candidate John McCain, who was ultimately defeated at the national level by an approximate 18 percent margin.

Residents in Cape Elizabeth and South Portland mirrored voters in the rest of Congress District 1 by narrowly favoring democratic candidate for Congress Chellie Pingree over republican Charlie Summers. Summers lost by an estimated 11 percent margin in at the state level – not including results from his hometown of Scarborough, where results were delayed by an absentee ballot complication – and a comparable margin in Cape Elizabeth (1,000 votes) and South Portland (3,000 votes).

South Portland voters further stuck to party lines in the State Senate race, favoring democratic candidate Tom Allen over republican Susan Collins by less than 600 votes. It was also a close race in Cape Elizabeth, where Collins won by less than 400 votes in the town and by a 21 percent margin at the state level.

In the State Senate District 7 race, which includes portions of South Portland, Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough, democratic candidate Lawrence Bliss was ahead of republic candidate Thomas Dunne by more than 5,000 votes on Wednesday morning, but still waiting for the Scarborough results to come in. While the final results from all three towns in the district was released after the Sentry deadline, Bliss said he wasn’t shocked Cape Elizabeth residents favored Dunne by approximately 300 votes.

“Tom is a really great guy and has a lot of great ideas,” he said. “It’s not surprising to me people liked what he has to say.”

Dunne was narrowly favored in Cape Elizabeth, but in South Portland voters continued to stay true to the democratic party; Bliss received more than 9,500 votes, three times that of his opponent.

“They’re different towns and have different priorities,” Bliss said. “They approach problems in a slightly different way, which is how it should be.”

In the Maine House of Representatives races democratic candidates were favored overall: in South Portland, Terry Morrison took House District 122 with more than 3,400 votes and Bryan Kaenrath narrowly retained his seat with approximately 300 more votes than republican candidate Kevin Glynn. Cape Elizabeth former town councilor and democratic incumbent Cynthia Dill won in House District 121 after receiving more than 3,000 votes from Cape Elizabeth residents. Both towns favored democratic candidate Jane Eberle in House District 123, who won by more than 2,100 votes overall.