Will Tammy Caputi Avoid a Run-Off and Win This Month?

Scottsdale residents who are registered on the early voter list have already received their ballots and have likely noticed an overabundance of options for Scottsdale City Council; nine, to be exact, all vying for one of three seats. We have written about these races a few times (you can check them out here), but one name stands out not just due to incumbency but also extremely prolific fundraising: Tammy Caputi.

Before we really dive into the odds, let’s jump into the fun part, the part that you’re all here for: math! So to avoid a run-off and win outright, let’s say that 50,000 people vote for council races, and they vote for 2.5 of the 3 seats on average (some will “single-shot” or only vote for 2, most will vote for 3). We would multiply 50,000 x 2.5 to get 125,000. We would then divide that 125,000 by the 3 seats to get 41,666.7, and then divide that by 2 and round up to the next number to get 20,834. 20,834 votes to avoid the run-off in this situation.

For comparison, in the 2020 city council race, 184,910 total votes were cast for city council, not 125,000, but it’s just easier to work with rounder numbers.

Now that we’ve bored off half of our audience, let’s go back to Caputi. In this instance, she would need to get a vote on a bit over 40% of submitted ballots to be elected. If everyone were to use all 3 choices (extremely unlikely, but it serves as an upper bound), that percentage rises to 50%.

Caputi has her detractors, primarily vis a vis a perceived coziness with developers and nightclub owners, but those detractors also seem to be in the loud activist minority. Money speaks more than anything, and your average voter doesn’t get into the minutae of city politics where those activists lie. Most voters will likely be focused on partisan primaries and other more polarized elections.

With around $160,000 in her coffers, getting a vote on between 40-50% of ballots seems extremely achievable if she were to want to spend that balance down. If she tries to save for the general election, it could be tougher, but between significant name ID and the ability to pepper the area with some cable and streaming TV ads and mail pieces, a smart spend of $100,000 seems like it would be enough to do the job.

Frankly, the best that nearly any other candidate can reasonably hope for is to make it to the run-off election in November, and if they’re wise they should be rooting for her to not win outright. If she does win in July (and no one else does), only four competitors will go to the general election, compared to six (including her) if she doesn’t.