Winners: Johnson, Dear, Vito, Vito's Opponents, Kilgore Trout, Numberologist

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By Azi Paybarah

September 19, 2007 | 9:29 a.m.

It was a split decision yesterday for Brooklyn Democratic County Leader Vito Lopez, who backed one winning judicial candidate (Noach Dear) and one losing judicial candidate (Shawndya Simpson) in yesterday’s primaries.

It was a mixed result in another way, too: Dear was panned by the New York City Bar Association and the New York Times, Lopez’s other judicial candidate won more support from those same institutions.

So, how should we interpret yesterday’s results, in terms of the Brooklyn party organization?

Democratic consultant Scott Levenson, who has won his share of races in that borough, told me last night,

“It’s not just machine politics in Brooklyn. Thinking voters voted for an under-funded candidate with less name recognition [Diana Johnson] because she was more qualified and not the machine candidate. Other insurgent candidates will take notice.”

Another observer of the political scene, who prefers to go by the name Kilgore Trout, emailed me this morning to say,

“I think that this proves that Brooklyn is completely up for grabs by the non institutional players. Neither the Times nor the party hold enough sway to be deciding factors these days.”

According to unofficial results as of last night, Johnson defeated Simpson 60-40.

Most of the predictions I got for that race had it a lot closer. The one that didn't, and which wound up being the most accurate, was from the aforementioned Kilgore Trout, who called it at 61-39.

According to unofficial results as of last night, Noach Dear defeated Karen Yellen 60 to 40 percent. Again, most of the guesses had Yellen coming a lot closer than that. The closest guess belonged to Numberologist, who projected Dear to win 58-42.