Election season 2015 is heating up

The above chart is from the Localwiki: Ann Arbor article entitled "Petitions for Ann Arbor Elected Office." As you can see the field for the August 2015 Democratic Primary is getting pretty full. Some observations:

Will Leaf, who you may remember from the Mixed Use Party has pulled petitions to run in Ward 1.

Former Ward 2 Council member, Sally Hart Petersen has pulled petitions to run in Ward 2 again. This means we could see a rare competition in the November 2015 General Election if current Ward 2 independent Council member, Jane Lumm, runs for reelection.

Ward 3 Council Member, Stephen Kunselman, is the only candidate who has submitted completed petitions to the city clerk. Good on you, CM Kunselman.

Another newcomer, Zachary Ackerman, will be running in the Ward 3 primary. Ackerman is an Ann Arbor native who graduated from U of M in Dec. 2015. He has worked on several political campaigns including Christopher Taylor's mayoral campaign and Debbie Dingell's Congressional bid. Kunselman has deftly defeated past challenges from recent U of M grads, so it will be interesting to see if Ackerman can put his political experience to use in his city council bid. This could be an exciting election to watch.

At this point, Jack Eaton is the only candidate who does not appear to be facing a challenger in the August primary or the November general elections.

In the Fighting Fifth, both Chip Smith and incumbent Mike Anglin have pulled petitions to run. Anglin has held the seat since 2007 and never received less than 65% in the primary or general elections. Still, Chip Smith's late breaking 2013 write-in campaign was able to capture over 30% of the vote in Ward 5. This is the election to watch folks. Ward 5 tends to have much higher voter turnout than the other wards. Also, Chip Smith's 2013 campaign was notable for being the first local campaign to feature youtube videos and facebook ads.

Gentle reader, are you getting excited for the local election season?