Voters pack East End Community School Tuesday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Photographer

A clearer picture of the Portland City Council and school board race began to emerge around 9:25 p.m. Tuesday.

After polls closed at 8 p.m., city spokeswoman Jessica Grondin told reporters and candidates awaiting the numbers Tuesday evening that “it will take some time to get results due to the volume of ballots and polling stations that still have queues.”

At 9:25 p.m., four out of eleven constituencies communicated the results.

In the District 1 city council race, Sarah Michniewicz was leading against her opponent Todd Morse with 1,274 votes to 903.

The overall race showed Jess Falero in the lead with 582 votes, followed by Brandon Mazer with 510 votes and Ben Grant with 437 votes.

In the school board race, Maya Lena had a significant lead over John Rousseau with 1,463 votes to 443.

There were still no precincts reporting results from District 2 and no clear winner in races with seven precincts and all mail-in ballots still to be counted.

Three Portland City Council seats were up for election this year — in Districts 1 and 2 and one at-large seat — after Councilors Roberto Rodriguez, Anna Trevorrow and Victoria Pelletier all chose not to run for reelection. In the lead-up to Election Day, many municipal candidates cited housing and homelessness as top issues.

It was also the first election in Portland in which all candidates running for a council seat had registered under the city’s new clean elections program. And last month, some candidates were surprised when a national political action committee spent $56,000 to support a handful of more moderate candidates.

In District 1, where Trevorrow gave up his seat, Michniewicz and Morse are vying to represent East End, Bayside and Casco Bay Islands. Both candidates said housing and transportation were priorities for them, although they offered different ideas on the issue. how to solve these problems.

District 2 – currently represented by Victoria Pelletier – drew lots a crowded race with Atiim Boykin, Nancy English, Catherine Nekoie, Robert O’Brien and Wesley Pelletier all running for the seat. District 2 covers most of the west side of the peninsula, between High Street and County Way, and a small part of Back Cove.

The general race was also crowded with five candidates: Falero, Grant, Grayson Lookner, Mazer and Jacob Viola. The candidates came from diverse backgrounds and had varying levels of experience, but also said homelessness and housing were the city’s top issues.

Although three Portland school board seats were up for election this fall, only a race was run.

A substitute teacher, Maya Lena, and a business owner, John Rousseau, ran for this at-large seat. The political newcomers joined the race after Nyalat Biliew announced she was not seeking re-election.

Boykin and Nekoie were outside Reiche Elementary School that morning greeting voters as they went to the polls.

Around 5 p.m., the line stretched just outside the gym. Nekoie and Falero, who are not competing for a seat but have very different agendas on homelessness and housing issues, stood at the door to shake hands and speak to voters.

“It’s been very exciting. People smile. I love it,” Nekoie said.

“I can’t wait to see how this all plays out, with ranked-choice voting you never know,” Falero said.

This story will be updated.

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