OCEAN CITY — When Pete Madden made it a three-way race for mayor this winter, a question arose: Would he be the spoiler, causing incumbent Mayor Jay Gillian to lose, or would he have that effect on second-time challenger Keith Hartzell?
For his own part, Madden said he was confident he could win. However, he ended up with only about half the votes of either Gillian or Hartzell.
Madden received 939 votes, Hartzell got 1,642 and Gillian won with 1,981. Granted, there are still some provisional and write-in ballots to be added to the final totals, but the small number means it is unlikely to greatly affect the final results.
It is impossible to know how everyone voted — whether Gillian backers switched to Hartzell or vice versa, and who the additional voters chose, but there are a few interesting statistics.
When Hartzell challenged Gillian in the 2022 election, he received 1,953 votes. Gillian won with 2,348 votes.
In Tuesday’s election, Hartzell dropped 311 votes to 1,642 and Gillian dropped 367 votes to 1,981.
Although in sheer numbers Gillian lost more votes in his fifth bid for office than in his fourth, the percentages tell a different story.
With Madden in the race, Gillian’s votes decreased by 15.7 percent. Hartzell’s votes decreased by 16 percent, almost the same.
With 216 more voters casting ballots in 2026 than in 2024, the differences in votes add up almost to Madden’s total.
If he pulled 367 from Gillian and 311 from Hartzell, and the 216 additional votes are added in, it adds up to 894 votes, nearly the 939 that Madden received. Again, without polling every voter, it is unknown who voted for whom.
And although there have already been social media posts blaming Madden for Hartzell’s loss, it appears more likely that he was an equal-opportunity spoiler, pulling the same percentage from the other two candidates.
Election results
On Tuesday, there were 4,601 votes cast, the most of any mayoral election featuring Gillian.
In the 2018 contest, in which former City Council member John Flood ran a lackluster campaign, he lost to Gillian 1,950 to 1,122 with 3,086 votes cast.
That same year in the at-large council race, Hartzell received 2,342, most of any candidate.
In the 2014 mayoral race, in a more contested election, Gillian won with 2,115 votes compared to challenger Ed Price, who received 1,386 out of 3,507 votes cast.
That year, Hartzell earned 2,404 votes, again more than any other candidate.
In the 2010 mayoral election with no incumbent after Sal Perillo declined to run for a second term, Gillian beat Michael Hinchman 2,697 to 1,586 with 4,288 votes cast.
Hartzell received 2,172 votes that year.
– STORY and PHOTO of Pete Madden by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
