Baldridge not running for City Council

Oak Hill businesswoman Sandy Baldridge announced Tuesday that she would not be running for City Council this spring. Baldridge had been considering a run for Place 5 against former Council Member Bill Spelman to succeed outgoing Mayor Pro Tem Brewster McCracken.

 

Baldridge released a statement that said, “While I’m confident that I would have had the strong support of voters in Austin, it became clear to me that winning a citywide election would require more resources than I believed I could raise under Austin’s current campaign limits, and more support than I believed I had from the city’s most active voters in central Austin.”

 

She told In Fact Daily, “The fact that Cid Galindo raised $300,000 for his campaign and still could not really penetrate the suburbs was—and in this economy asking my friends and supporters to dole out that kind of money—seemed unconscionable. I’d rather put it in jobs. I supported Cid so I wanted to see something other than what I call the central core represented on Council.” Galindo lost a runoff election to Laura Morrison last summer, with Morrison rolling up heavy margins in West, Central and South Austin. Galindo took only a few precincts, all in Northwest and Southwest Austin.

 

After consulting numerous campaign advisors, Baldridge said she became convinced that it would be impossible to win an election “if you’re not part of the social core.” She noted in her statement, “One of my top priorities will be to give Austin citizens another chance to vote on adopting a mix of single-member district seats with at-large seats to make for a better system of truly geographical representation.”