Bowser is the definite favorite. She’s the Democratic nominee, has raised the most so far (over twice as much as Catania; more than 20 times as much as Schwartz), has a strong campaign (coming off of the victory over Gray), and seems to have a decent number of volunteers. Catania seems to be doing decently well, all things considered. He’s definitely running a viable campaign, and anecdotally I’ve heard of a number of people mention that they’re thinking about him – but I don’t think it will be enough. He was setting himself up to run against Gray, and would have had a pretty decent chance if he had, considering Gray’s problems.
And Schwartz? She entered late, is far behind the others in funds (and, it seems, volunteers), hasn’t had any important endorsements from what I’ve seen, and has been out of office for 6 years. I imagine she’ll get some votes from people that remember her time on the council and liked her. But if it’s difficult for Catania to win, it’s hard to imagine how Schwartz would win. She’s definitely playing the role of the third-party candidate in this election.
The map is also going to make it particularly difficult for Catania and Schwartz. In order to win, they’re going to either have to do much better than Bowser in the areas where she performed best during the primaries, or do much better than her in areas where they have historically done the worst. A lot of the people that they would have needed to win have already been won over by Bowser during the primaries (granted, there are a lot of people who didn’t vote, and Ward 3 seems to have a lot of Republicans).
Like I said, though, I’m mostly excited about Elissa Silverman’s chances of winning the At-Large seat, ending marijuana prohibition, and Bowser leaving the council. Zuckerberg as attorney general might be nice as well.
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