On Jan. 4, residents were able start filing official declarations of candidacy in the 2023 Bloomington primary elections.
But at noon on Friday, the time for filing official paperwork expired.
No unexpected declarations for mayor were recorded on the last day of filing. That means voters across the city in Bloomington’s Democratic Party primary on May 2 will have three mayoral candidates to choose from: Kerry Thomson; Susan Sandberg; and Don Griffin.
And Democrats will have a pool of seven at-large city council candidates—from which to choose three.
There’s only one candidate in the Democratic primary for city clerk—incumbent Nicole Bolden.
Republican voters will have no citywide candidates to choose from.
The one independent candidate for mayor who has filed paperwork to establish a committee is Joseph Davis. But he has not yet submitted the 352 signatures that he needs, in order to be placed on the Nov. 7 general election ballot. The deadline for Davis and any other independent candidates to submit signatures is June 30.
Five of the six city council districts have contested races in the Democratic Primary. Just one Republican has filed for city office—Brett Heinisch in District 3.
District 3 for the Dems is one of two races that have three candidates: Conner Wright; current CM Ron Smith; and Hopi Stosberg.
The other three-way race is District 5. No current CM lives in the newly drawn District 5. Primary Voters in District 5 will choose between Shruti Rana, Matt Caldie, and Jenny Stevens.
On the last day declarations could be filed, Joe Lee declared himself as a candidate in District 1. Current CM Isabel Piedmont-Smith had earlier filed for reelection to the council in the newly drawn District 1.
CM Dave Rollo is the sole city council candidate for District 4.
CMs Sue Sgambelluri and Kate Rosenbarger, who each currently represent a different district, will square off against each other in the primary, because last year’s redistricting process put them both in District 2.
No current CM lives in the new District 6. Primary Voters in District 6 will choose between David Wolfe Bender and Bean Appleton.
For the 3 at large seats, two of the seven primary candidates are current CMs: Matt Flaherty and Steve Volan. Flaherty currently has an at-large seat.
Volan currently represents the old District 6, but the redistricting process last year landed him in District 4, and he would have faced Dave Rollo, if he’d run in that district.
The other five at-large candidates are: Jonas Schrodt; Ryne Shadday; Andy Ruff; Lois Sabo-Skelton; and Isak Asare.
Current CM Susan Sandberg is not seeking re-election to her at-large city council seat, because she is running for mayor. Current CM Jim Sims is also not seeking re-election to his at-large seat.
Because just one of the two CMs, Sgambelluri and Rosenbarger, can win the District 2 race, that means at least three current CMs will not be returning to the council table in 2024.
Candidates who filed by the deadline still have another week, until Feb. 10, to withdraw. Barring any withdrawals, the current list of Democrats will be the names that appear on the ballot.
There’s still the possibility for the Republican Party to place candidates on the ballot for any of the races for which there was no candidate nominated for the primary. The deadline for the Republican Party to add candidates to fill a vacancy on the ballot is July 3.
Official candidate filings are available through Monroe County’s website. Here’s a link: [pre-loaded search for 2023 documents]. Below is a spreadsheet compiled by The B Square.
Jonas Schrodt was an excellent instructor at Monroe County Martial Arts for a long time. Not sure if that helps qualify him for city council or not 😊
Whew. That’s a lot of info. Thank you. Please put Sue Sgambelluri closer to Kate Rosenbarger, since they’re running for the same district on the map. It would be easy to misunderstand District 2.
The locations of the dots for candidates and their labels on the map are based on where the candidates live. I will add a note to that effect in the captions here momentarily. Thanks!
OK, adding a caption was some pretty weak tea. So I changed the color of the dots to match the district hue, but made them darker, so that the dots for any given district clump together a little better visually, but still stand out as dots. I briefly weighed making the color of the text for candidate names correspond to the district, instead of the political party, but that would have meant sacrificing one of the significant, even if well-known parts of this story—it’s almost only Democrats who run for city council.
Dave, thanks for the shout out. Your work is both vital, and amazing. More power to you!