The high turnout April 7, 2026 was a surprise for a special election, especially since the election was about a normally boring topic like zoning. In most ways, the special election turnout and demographics mirrored the last two city elections, which is only surprising because so many people thought there would be something “special” about the vote.
Key takeaways include:
Lakewood is not as progressive as its Council
People vote more when they think it matters
Unopposed Council Members are vulnerable
Voter turnout was higher than expected
Generation voting rates followed historic patterns
Lakewood is not as progressive as its Council
Lakewood City Council was very proud of all the progressive accomplishments made through the new zoning. But, although many City Council Members welcome the “progressive” label, Lakewood voters do not self-identify as such.
The table below shows party affiliation for voters in the special election. Most are unaffiliated, which aligns with overall Lakewood voter registration. According to this data, there really was no reason to think people would agree to a radical, progressive rezoning once they knew what was actually occurring.
City Council does not align with the people.
People Vote When They Think It Matters
The chart below shows voter turnout by ward. Notice that more people voted in the special election than voted in the 2025 Ward 1 and 2 City Councilor elections. Ward 1 and 2 candidates ran unopposed, causing many people not to vote.
This data shows that people will vote when they think it matters.
City leaders are expressing surprise over the zoning election results and showing how completely out of touch they are with their constituents. Instead of acknowledging this fact, or even stepping down in favor of someone who is more grounded, leaders renewed their commitment to some level of zoning changes.
Meanwhile, several trends are emerging as residents acknowledge they need more accountability:
Calls to not split the vote
Calls for more candidates
Recall
Don’t Split The Vote
The reader email below is representative of several calls for residents to get organized and run a single, anti-establishment candidate, rather than splitting the vote:
I wanted to share my view that everyone is probably aware of. If this gets in the conversation maybe it’ll happen. If the citizens truly want an improvement to how their city’s run it’s important that there’s only two people on the ballot for future elected positions. Maybe it’s easier said than done. It’ll take being united and picking just one to run against the statue quo. Two candidates splitting the vote won’t have much of a chance especially when needing to change policy direction. It’ll take one or more candidates making a sacrifice and stepping back through peer pressure if necessary. If they won’t do that to help fix the broken system maybe it’s part of a bigger plan after all. Nothing will change otherwise. No doubt future election strategy is already in the planning stage.
Call For Candidates
What this election showed was that Lakewood has a lot of motivated, effective people that are not satisfied with Lakewood leaders. Ultimately, residents are looking for representatives of Lakewood people, rather than outsiders. As the reddit exchange below points out, and as seen before in Lakewood Informer news, Lakewood representatives currently favor outsiders, including special-interest, real estate developers.
Having lost the special election on the 7th of April, by an almost 2 to 1 margin (despite having enormous financial backing from the real estate interests – more on that elsewhere), Lakewood’s Eye of Sauron now turns to economic development. Not that Lakewood has been doing anything of the sort.
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