3 versus 1 for 2: the Interesting Math for the Final Two Seats in the Scottsdale City Council

By Alexander Lomax

Scottsdale’s November ballot is shaping up as an arithmetic problem. Four candidates. Two seats. Three of them share the same lane. One does not. The Scottsdale general election will give every voter two council votes to spend. How those votes get spent, or deliberately withheld, will decide this race.

Barring surprises from the final canvass, the field looks set. Barry Graham, Michelle Ugenti-Rita and Littlefield occupy the conservative bloc. Raoul Zubia stands alone as the relative liberal. That imbalance is not a weakness for Zubia. It may be his single greatest asset.

The Power of the Unused Vote

Democrats and independents backing Zubia have an obvious play. Vote one and done. Cast a single vote, leave the second blank, and refuse to lift anyone else. It sounds passive. It is anything but.

A second vote given to a rival is worth nearly as much as a vote taken from your own candidate. Bullet voting concentrates support where split fields dilute it. In a three-versus-one race, discipline beats numbers.

Three Candidates, One Shared Pool

The conservative bloc faces the opposite problem. Graham, Ugenti-Rita and Littlefield are largely fishing in the same water. Their voters like all three. Their voters will likely use both votes. That generosity spreads support across three names instead of two.

The math gets uncomfortable quickly. If conservative votes divide evenly enough, all three land in a cluster. Zubia only needs to clear one of them. He does not need to win. He needs to place second.

Jockeying Without Wounding

So the bloc has to compete without bleeding. Each candidate needs to climb into the top two. None can afford to attack the others too openly. Negative contrast within the bloc depresses turnout across all three. It also hands Zubia a cleaner narrative.

Expect coded endorsements. Expect slates that quietly favor two names over three. Expect independent spending that boosts one conservative while ignoring another. Watch where the outside money lands, because that will tell you which two the establishment has actually chosen.

What to Watch Between Now and November

Track the mailers. Track the yard sign pairings. Two names on one sign is a strategy, not a coincidence. Track whether Democratic organizations formalize the bullet vote message or leave it to word of mouth.

Coordination beats enthusiasm in low turnout municipal races. One side has a simple instruction. The other has a delicate negotiation among three ambitious people.

Simple usually wins.