Bush factor sways vote in St. Paul, Minn., race for mayor

WASHINGTON — Love him or hate him, but don't read too much about President Bush into Tuesday's elections.

Although Bush's name wasn't on any ballots, partisans and pundits will use results in select states to measure whether voters are turning thumbs up or down on him.

But only one election — the race for mayor in St. Paul, Minn. — offered a clear referendum on Bush. Elections for governors in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as ballot initiatives in California and other states, hinged on local personalities and issues, not Bush.

The St. Paul mayor's race turned on how voters reacted to Democratic Mayor Randy Kelly's endorsement last year of Bush in his presidential re-election. St. Paul voted for Democrat John Kerry by a 3-to-1 ratio.

Kelly's heavily Democratic city didn't like Bush then, doesn't like him now and threw Kelly out because of it.

With about two-thirds of precincts counted, Democratic challenger Chris Coleman had more than twice as many votes as Kelly, also a Democrat.

"Bush is THE factor in the race," Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, said before the voting booths closed.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, whose leadership has been tainted by scandal and the threat of financial collapse, held a slim lead over challenger Freman Hendrix as the FBI investigated allegations that the names of dead people were used to cast absentee ballots.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting but an unknown number of absentee ballots uncounted, Kilpatrick had 53 percent and Hendrix had 47 percent.

Kilpatrick, at 35 one of the nation's youngest big-city mayors, trailed Hendrix throughout the campaign, polls showed. But the race seemed to tighten in the past week.

Hendrix, 54, vowed he wouldn't embarrass the city, a reference to allegations of Kilpatrick's financial mismanagement.

Yet another incumbent, Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell, the city's first woman mayor, was derailed by popular City Council President Frank Jackson, whose hard-luck life growing up in the nation's 12th-poorest city endeared him to voters.

While some mayoral incumbents struggled, those in New York, Boston and Atlanta glided to easy victories.

In New York, Republican Michael Bloomberg easily won a second term over Democrat Fernando Ferrer.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino handily won a fourth term, defeating City Councilwoman Maura Hennigan in her bid to become Boston's first woman mayor. Menino will become the city's longest-serving mayor if he completes his term.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin easily defeated two little-known challengers to capture a second term.