Record-low turnout mars primary election
Only seven percent of voters elected representatives in spring contest
Primary election turnouts in Kokomo and Howard County have been sparse for years, but the 2023 slate of candidates for municipal office attracted an all-time low. Of the 42,393 registered voters, only 2,944 of them – seven percent – cast a ballot on May 2.
By comparison, last year’s primary saw 11.6 percent of voters participate, and in the last municipal primary in 2019, just 19 percent of voters cast a ballot. Despite the electoral indifference, three contested races were decided on the Republican ballot.
In the city’s 1st council district, David Capshaw squeaked by Jason Acord, 106-102, to advance to the fall. Capshaw was appointed to replace Acord in 2022 after the Kokomo Lantern uncovered the fact that Acord was not a resident of the district. Redistricting last fall placed Acord into the 1st district legitimately, and he was seeking to reclaim the seat he won in 2019.
Capshaw, the past commander of Indiana’s Veterans of Foreign Wars and retired Kokomo firefighter, held off his predecessor and will represent the Republican Party on the ballot in November.
In the city’s 5th district, two sitting council members faced off, with current 5th district councilman Greg Davis outpacing at-large councilwoman Kara Kitts-McKibben, 349-212.
Davis was appointed to the 5th district seat following the resignation of council member Cindy Sanders, who retired for health reasons in 2021. Davis, a retired Kokomo Police officer and current marriage counselor, was quickly advanced to council leadership and currently serves as the council’s vice president.
Kitts-McKibben had enjoyed robust support from the electorate, winning an at-large council seat in 2019 with the highest vote total of any council candidate that year. She shifted her sights and sought to represent her home district in the 5th, but voters turned away her efforts. She will serve out her at-large council term and leave the body at the end of 2023.
The city’s 6th district featured an open seat, as current 6th district councilman Tom Miklik opted to run at-large this year. That left Crystal Sanburn and Kevin Summers to battle it out. Sanburn scored the largest victory of the night, eliminating her opponent, 451-240, and taking 67 percent of ballots cast.
Sanburn left the Kokomo Center Schools Board at the end of her term in 2022. The director of Cross America in Kokomo immediately jumped into partisan politics and found success.
Summers was handed his third electoral defeat in seven years. The retired Kokomo Police officer previously represented the city as a Republican at-large city councilman but was forced out of office in 2015 due to a state law that prohibits employees of a political subdivision from holding office within that subdivision. At the time, he was an active-duty police officer.
Summers subsequently switched to the Democratic party and lost in 2016 in the race for Howard County Commissioner, and in 2019 he failed to make it out of the primary as a candidate for mayor. His return to the Republican party this year was met with defeat.
All other races on the ballot were uncontested. As such, Mayor Tyler Moore advances to the fall election, as does city clerk Diane Howard, appointed 2nd district councilwoman Joni DeLon, 3rd district councilman and council president Ray Collins, 4th district council appointee Jeff Plough, and at-large council candidates Miklik, Matt Grecu, and Tony Stewart.
On the Democratic Party ticket, at-large council candidate Essie Foster and Adrienne Akers were unopposed in the primary and will advance to the fall. The Democrat Party has until July to appoint candidates to the fall ballot in the races currently unfilled.
With no contested races on the ballot, the Democrats pulled just 652 voters to the polls.