Back to the bellwether

Jennifer Egbert shows some beans to Arlene Corsaw, a 57-year College Hill resident. The weekly Farmer's Market, begun by the College Hill Gardeners, has prompted greater cooperation among the neighborhood's organizations. (Photo by Michael E. Keating/The Cincinnati Enquirer)

Back in August, the Enquirer visited Precinct 23-FF in College Hill, which has historically been one of the best predictors of the city as a whole.

So what did this microcosm reflect on primary election day? The final, unofficial results:

	Candidate	Votes	Percent
	Mark L. Mallory	62	50.8%
	Charlie Winburn	35	28.7%
	David Pepper	23	18.9%
	Alicia Reece	1	0.8%
	Justin P. Jeffre	1	0.8%

Across Ward 23 -- which includes College Hill, Mount Airy and part of Northside and is also a pretty good barometer of the city as a whole -- the results tracked closer to the citywide outcome:

	Candidate	Votes	Percent
	Mark L. Mallory	1,537	33.9%
	David Pepper	1,165	25.7%
	Charlie Winburn	1,157	25.5%
	Alicia Reece	616	13.6%
	Justin P. Jeffre	44	1.0%
	Sylvan Grisco	10	0.2%
	Sandra Queen Noble	9	0.2%

Turnout in Precinct 23-FF was 30.3 percent, and in Ward 23 it was 24.8 percent -- both much higher than the 20.3 percent citywide.

Voters here know the candidates well. It's always been fertile ground for David Pepper, who has spent more than one Saturday afternoon knocking on doors from one end of College Hill to another. It's also in Mark L. Mallory's senate district, and he has his campaign headquarters down the street. Republican Charlie Winburn has his church down the road and has a strong following here, which might have hurt Pepper a little.

This is a racially integrated neighborhood where voters say the intangible issues -- leadership skills and an ability to unify the city's fractious politics -- are paramount. College Hill has millions of dollars of city investments in the pipeline, and there's a palpable optimism not seen in other city neighborhoods.

What does this mean for November? It's difficult to extrapolate citywide trends from one precinct. But at least in this one corner of the city, voters are looking for an outsider (look at the vote for Vice Mayor Alicia Reece). The challenge for Pepper, then, is to win over Winburn Republicans and convince Democrats and independents that College Hill is on the verge of a renaissance -- and that he's the best candidate to keep that momentum going. Mallory just needs to remind them he's not a councilman.