As election results came in Tuesday, most of the crowd at Steve Kimatian’s headquarters stayed glued to the TV. But as the numbers dipped, one young woman had to excuse herself from the crowded room.

Toma Grigoryan, a campaign volunteer and May graduate of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, had been working for mayoral candidate Kimatian since the primaries.

‘I can’t sit there and just watch the numbers roll in like that,’ she said. ‘You work for so long on something like this, it’s rough.’

Grigoryan was one of nearly 100 campaign volunteers and supporters who gathered Tuesday in Kimatian’s headquarters on North Midler Avenue.

Kimatian, the Republican candidate, lost the Syracuse race for mayor to Democrat Stephanie Miner.

‘We ran a very good race and though we did not win, we did a lot of things together and we made a lot of friends,’ Kimatian said. ‘And we set a course that we thought was best for the city.’

The defeat makes Miner Syracuse’s first female mayor.

Otis Jennings, longtime city parks and recreation commissioner, also lost in the three-candidate race. Jennings was running on the Conservative Party ticket.

Miner won the race with 11,253 votes, 50 percent of the total, according to unofficial results from the Onondaga County Board of Elections.

Kimatian lost with 8,817 votes, 39 percent of the total. Jennings lost with 2,314 votes, 10 percent of the total, according to the Onondaga County Board of Elections.

In Syracuse, Kimatian, 68, is best known for his career as a TV executive, lawyer and philanthropist. He hosted a TV show on NewsChannel 9, ‘With Steve on Sunday,’ and he worked as general counsel to Newport Television, until he announced his candidacy for mayor in April.

He did not say whether he would return to work for Newport Television.

As for politics, Kimatian is a Syracuse political novice. His only other brush with politics was a 1980 run for a seat in the Maryland State Legislature. But he beat Otis Jennings in an upset primary Sept. 15.

This time around Kimatian wasn’t so lucky. But he graciously thanked a teary crowd, calling the race a ‘special time’ that he will always remember.

‘Just because this race didn’t work out, we’ll find other ways because all of us believe in our city,’ Kimatian said. ‘All of us believe we can have one of the great cities in America, and I know all of us will continue doing what we’ve done.’

The political math was stacked against Kimatian. In Syracuse, Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1, according to the Onondaga County Board of Elections. Kimatian was also trailing in the money. As of Oct. 23, he had raised only $84,334 compared to Miner’s $546,118 according to campaign finance reports filed with the New York State Board of Elections. Kimatian lent $150,000 to his own campaign.

At the polls on Tuesday, voters touted Miner’s Say Yes to Education program and leadership on the common council as reasons she’d make a good mayor.

Maggie Dambrosio of East Syracuse works as a union steward for AT&T. She voted for Miner, she said, because she’s a pro-union candidate who shares her same Democratic values.

‘I don’t know much about Kimatian. I don’t think he’s ready,’ Dambrosio said. ‘Miner would be good for the city – she’s the Working Families Party candidate, which I like and it’d be great to see a woman in there.’

Voters also voiced skepticism over Kimatian’s political inexperience.

Paul Rio of Eastwood is a member of the Service Employees International Union. He said he voted for Kimatian because he was the ‘lesser of two evils.’

‘I don’t like Miner’s attitude,’ Rio said. ‘We always vote straight Democrat but seeing how she’s related to the unions hasn’t been too friendly. I think it’s a shame Otis stayed in the race; now Kimatian won’t have much of a chance.’

Kimatian ran a heavily grassroots campaign. He estimates he knocked on more than 2,500 doors in what he terms the ‘street race for mayor.’ He got many of his campaign platforms from those talks.

At Kimatian’s headquarters Tuesday night, the once packed and stuffy crowd started to clear out as TV stations declared Miner the winner around 10:40 p.m. The campaign volunteers and supporters who remained slowly finished off their cans of Bud Light before exchanging goodbyes and reluctantly fishing for their car keys.

But Kimatian remained optimistic through to the end.

‘This is really not a sad occasion,’ he said. ‘I’m so grateful to all of these people who helped me along the way.’

And as a gesture of that, Kimatian told the crowd he wanted to shake each and every person’s hand in the room before leaving.

And he did.

jmterrus@syr.edu

– A version of this story previously appeared on democracywise.syr.edu

Published on November 3, 2009 at 12:00 pm