With most VBM ballots counted now, Judge Portman-Brown appears to have lost her retention bid

I deliberately employed some lawyerly weasel-words when I wrote, on the morning of November 4, that it looked like all Cook County judges seeking retention appeared to have been retained.

There were still votes being counted, I cautioned. A week later, many of those votes have been counted. And Judge Jackie Marie Portman Brown has fallen below the 60% threshold necessary for retention in both the City and the suburbs -- 58.87% in the City, 59.69% in the Suburbs (the suburban returns having been updated just last night). There are still some suburban votes to be counted -- meaning vote by mail ballots already received but not yet processed. There could still late-arriving ballots in the City and the suburbs -- ballots postmarked on or before Election Day can still be counted if they arrive by November 17. But the numbers of validly postmarked, late-arriving ballots has dwindled, as one would expect, to a daily handful. Portman Brown seems unlikely to rebound at this point. Her combined "yes" percentage, by my calcuation, is 59.27%.

On Election Night I reported that Judge John J. Mahoney was below the 60% threshold in City returns. His City numbers got worse over the past week, as VBM ballots were processed. Mahoney received "yes" votes on only 57.44% of ballots in the City of Chicago. However, just as on Election Night, Mahoney's suburban numbers have bouyed his retention bid up above the minimum: As of last night, Mahoney had "yes" votes from 62.65% of suburban voters. By my calculations, however, that comes to 60.05% in the combined total. The margin is whisker thin -- and we may just have to await final certification of the results to know for certain.

The closely-watched retention bid of Judge Michael P. Toomin has not been seriously impacted by these late returns. As of November 4, I reported that Toomin had barely reached the 60% threshold in the City, but had been 'saved by the suburbs.' City totals now put his "yes" vote at 59.02%, but his favorable percentage in the most recently reported suburban returns is 64.15%. His combined favorable percentage is 61.57%.

One thing is clearly evident: When it came to the retention ballot, the electorate was in a sour mood this year. While someone may have slipped past my notice, I haven't seen any retention candidate with an overall favorable percentage clearly above 80%. In the last retention election, there were eight such. (Judge Cynthia Y. Cobbs had a nearly 82% favorable vote in the City returns, but just over 78% in the suburbs. By my calculations, she's at 80.007112% overall -- and she may top the retention class.)