Blogs

49ers.com Election Night Coverage

We have arrived at the American Legion in Santa Clara, site of the 49ers “Yes on J” election results party.  Taylor Price, CSN Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco and I are set up in our “media row” in the back of the room.  Stay tuned to 49ers.com and our Twitter account for results as they come in.  The polls will close tonight at 8:00 pm so we should start getting results in shorty thereafter.

Below is a picture of our setup.

We will also be posting more images, videos, quotes and comments from those in attendance throughout the night.  Stay tuned!

8:15 UPDATE

With 10 of 58 precincts reporting, 61% of the votes counted are yes.  A picture of the first returns, which is being projected against one of the walls, is below.

8:37 UPDATE

I just spoke with the “Yes on J” campaign manager, Brandon Smith.   With the polls showing an early lead for the Yes on J campaign (8,383 votes Yes to 5,295 votes No), Smith was optimistic with the initial returns.

“Being up 16 percent off the first break of the ballots was huge,” Smith said.  ”We didn’t think it was going to be that high so we’re optimistic.  With that said, you never know what the turnout was on the ground.  Unless we lost big at the polls, we’re in good shape.”

Campaign Manager Brandon Smith

Most of these early results are the vote-by-mail ballots.  Stay tuned for more results!

** ALL OF THESE NUMBERS ARE REPORTED BY THE SANTA CLARA COUNTY REGISTRAR OF VOTERS **

Santa Clara Mayor Patricia Mahan does an interview with CSN Bay Area

9:35 UPDATE

There has not been any new updates on the election results from the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, but I did catch up with Santa Clara Mayor Patricia Mahan who said she was thrilled for this day to finally arrive.

“It’s been three years of hard work and it’s coming to fruition,” Mahan said. “This is a great night.  It’s sort of a pause to celebrate and hopefully there’s a lot more work to do, but we’re ready for it.”

Like the “Yes on J” campaign manager, Mahan was also pleased with the early returns.

“I’m pretty excited by the results so far,” she said.  ”I’m glad to see it’s such a big margin in favor of the stadium because for me it means that Santa Clara supports this.”

10:05 UPDATE

Team President/CEO Jed York has arrived at the election results party and should be making a speech shortly.

10:4O UPDATE

With 12 of 58 precincts reporting, the lead for Yes on J remains virtually unchanged with a 61 percent – 38 percent lead.

10:45 UPDATE

Jed York just fielded questions from the media at the election results party.  Tonight is the result of lots of hard by York personally.  The 49ers President/CEO campaigned by going door to door, including this past weekend.

“The most common question was probably, ‘Is the name still going to be the San Francisco 49ers?’ and the answer is yes. We’re the San Francisco 49ers,” York said.

York said he also received a lot of questions from residents who were worried their taxes would increase.

“I think that was always the misnomer,” York explained. “What taxes are going up? How are we paying for this? And when you walk people through how a redevelopment agency works, and they understand that this is money that is supposed to spur economic development, they see this is a good use of funds. When they see that the only people really getting taxed are the eight hotels, they understand this must be a pretty good idea if eight local businesses are choosing to put $35 million into this project. There must be a reason to do that.”

Though the initial returns appear good early, there is still much work ahead.

“The next step is to final the tally tonight, and hopefully win the election,” York said.

If the ballot measure passes, York said they would begin construction in 2012 and have the opening kick-off in 2014.

11:50 UPDATE

That’s it for our coverage from the election results party.  We’ll have a lot more coverage on the election results on 49ers.com tomorrow so stay tuned!