Founding Councilwoman Ousted By GOP-Backed Candidates

While the president will keep his job, one of Lake Forest’s founding City Council members will lose hers.

Voters on Tuesday ousted incumbent Marcia Rudolph after 21 years on the council in favor of Adam Nick and Dwight Robinson, two newcomers who campaigned together as critics of the current council. (Incumbent Councilman Mark Tettemer chose not to run for a third term.)

A margin of 1,852 votes separated Robinson, the second highest vote-getter, from third place finisher Terry Anderson.

Here is the vote tally from Lake Forest's 55 precincts, according to numbers released by the Orange County Registrar of Voters shortly before 1 a.m.:

-Adam Nick: 8,087 (21.7 percent)

-Dwight Robinson: 7,500 (20.1 percent)

-Terry Anderson: 5,648 (15.2 percent)

-Jim Gardner: 4,685 (12.6 percent)

-Councilwoman Marcia Rudolph: 4,464 (12 percent)

-Kathy Zechmeister: 4,321 (11.6 percent)

-Ken Carrell: 2,549 (6.8 percent)

Nick and Robinson were both endorsed by the Orange County Republican Party, which  in support of the pair and in opposition of Rudolph and Anderson.

"I think the community was effectively blinded by the Orange County Republican Party," Anderson said after the county Registrar released the final tally. "Big politics wins."

Gardner, who has run for council twice before, called the results a "victory for the Tea Party."

Victors Nick and Robinson could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

Robinson ran once previously for a council seat, in 2002. He landed fifth of seven candidates, garnering 6,035 votes. Nick has not previously run for office in Lake Forest.

Gardner has said previously he will not run for council again. During his second run, in 2010, he missed the third available seat by 540 votes. Voigts, now Lake Forest's mayor pro tem, was the race's top vote-getter that year with 11,332 votes.

In September, Voigts endorsed Robinson. Robinson and Nick have held at least one joint fundraiser; Nick donated $1,000 to Robinson's campaign in April.

During the last presidential election, Lake Forest voters returned incumbents Rudolph and Tettemer to their council seats with roughly 15,000 votes a piece.

More Lake Forest voters turned out that year than on Tuesday: 42,590 voters cast ballots in the Lake Forest council race in 2008. On Tuesday, 37,254 residents voted for one of seven council candidates.