Does that mean they’re happy with local government?

Complicating the answer is that in two of the three races, voters had to choose among three candidates. “A three-way race is difficult for challengers,” writes Will Leaf, one of two candidates who ran unsuccessfully against Ward One incumbent Sumi Kailasapathy. “People who are dissatisfied with the incumbent split their votes between two candidates. That happened in the first ward and possibly the fourth ward.”

Diane Giannola, one of two challengers to lose in Ward Four, has a different explanation. “It was the council endorsements,” she says by phone. “All the candidates who did well were backed” by other incumbents.

That wasn’t true for Eric Lipson, the other challenger in that ward, who lost despite having the support of incumbent Jack Eaton. But the winner, Graydon Krapohl, was backed by Julie Grand and Zach Ackerman–and by mayor Christopher Taylor, who campaigned door-to-door for him.

Krapohl says the support came at a critical time. “Being in the middle of treatment for cancer greatly limited my ability at times to get out during the campaign,” he emails. “The help I received was critical and just tremendous.”

For Chuck Warpehoski, who won the two-way race in Ward Five, one particular endorsement was key. “Vivienne Armentrout endorsed me, and that helped a lot.” What made her endorsement especially sweet was that Warpehoski got on council by beating Armentrout in the 2012 primary.

Taylor also campaigned for Jason Frenzel, the other loser, in Ward One. “Sumi has strong name recognition,” Frenzel says. “This was her fourth run. Running against an incumbent as a first-timer is really challenging, and most of the time people lose.” Frenzel also agrees with Leaf: “Having two challengers make it even more complicated.” But together he and Leaf got 55 percent.

In Ward Five, Warpehoski trounced lone challenger Kevin Leeser with 68 percent of the vote. But Giannola and Lipson split 60 percent of the vote in Ward Four–though that still left Krapohl with a winning plurality. Lipson notes dryly that “the incumbent’s success was due to the fact that he got the most votes.”

Krapohl believes part of the reason he and the other incumbents won was that “residents believe overall that we as a city are headed in the right direction and are generally satisfied with their community and quality of life.” Giannola has an entirely different view. “When I went door-to-door, most people didn’t know who [Krapohl] was,” she says. “The public doesn’t really care who sits there.”

Is she bitter? “I don’t think that’s bitter,” she says. “That’s reality.”

Kailasapathy credits her victory to her “emphasis on good governance.” Despite Taylor’s successful work for Krapohl in Ward Four, she believes “having the mayor campaign for Mr. Frenzel might have actually worked against him, on the whole, as many residents felt that they would rather have a watchdog on council rather than another mayor’s ally to rubber-stamp issues.”

But Warpehoski says that going door-to-door, he found “that overall there is a high level of satisfaction” with the city’s performance. “There’s a subset [of residents] that is highly informed and highly opinionated, and a bigger percent that’s tuned out. Primary voters tend to be older, white, college educated.”

Eaton thinks there may be a disconnect between what people think of the town and how they vote. “People are concerned with taxes and with changing the character of downtown,” he says, “but whether they see a link between council and what’s happening in town I don’t know.”

Giannola’s view is the bleakest. “People couldn’t care less. People choose not to vote. It’s very easy to vote. They don’t care. You get the elected representative you vote in.”