Police union is biggest loser in election outcome

Stavros Anthony

The biggest loser in the municipal races? Not Glenn Trowbridge, who lost by 10 votes to Stavros Anthony in the Las Vegas City Council race. The biggest loser is the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, the police union that went all out to help defeat Anthony, a police captain, and failed.

The police union's bragging rights as a powerful political force in local politics are lost.

The past week or so, I received six fliers from the PPA, including three that were downright vicious.

A jubilant Anthony credits his success to working the phones and meeting people face to face. “If I meet somebody, they were going to vote for me.”

It probably didn’t hurt that both the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun endorsed him.

But I’m wondering if the PPA mailers went so over the top, it turned people away from Trowbridge.

One had Anthony’s photo with the caption “If my lips are moving, you know I’m lying.”

Another said, “Stavros Anthony has embarrassed us all.”

There is such a thing as overkill. The PPA’s mailers went from endorsing Trowbridge, to negative to absolutely vicious.

In the April primary, Anthony trailed Trowbridge by 18 points, and I credited the PPA's endorsement of Trowbridge with making the difference.

On Tuesday, when early voting returns were released, Anthony was behind by more than 3 percentage points. But when the final tally was released about 9:15 p.m., Anthony had scraped out a 10-vote victory.

The PPA, which had done the dirty work for Trowbridge, had lost.