This year’s election is the closest race Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo has seen in his 12 years at the helm of city government. It's the first serious challenge since 2007 to a Mayor now embarking upon his seventh term.
Devon Scott, a tech-savvy entrepreneur who started life in New York but grew up in Wilmington, grabbed 47% of the vote. That left Bill Saffo with his smallest margin of victory to date.
It was back in 2007 that two challengers, Harper Peterson and Justin LaNasa, left Saffo with a majority 57%. Since then, Saffo has had no trouble trouncing challengers and growing his majorities to 61%, 71%, 92%, 95%, 85%; that's in chronological order.
Devon Scott says his showing this year means he accomplished a primary goal.
"When I came in, I wanted to get as many people to engage as possible. I wanted to really help bring up new voters, disenfranchised, younger, minority voters, who just hadn’t been participating before. And we accomplished that."
Mayor Saffo says his opponent ran a very good race and brought out issues that Council will take up.
"This was a race about discussing of ideas, not personal attacks on each other. And that's the way races should be run in this community, in this country. And, you know, I would like to see more civility of that nature when it comes to politics."
Over the next two years, Saffo will advocate for film as part of a newly-formed state film council. He also says he’ll explore new ways to fund WAVE Transit.
All results are unofficial until the vote canvass on November 15th.
