It was the night of May 6, during that month’s First Friday event, when Downtown Cocktail Room and Emergency Arts proprietor Michael Cornthwaite made the call.
“Goodman by 20,” he said, effectively predicting that Carolyn Goodman would beat Chris Giunchigliani by that margin in the 2011 Las Vegas mayoral election.
Las Vegas mayoral candidate Carolyn Goodman gets a kiss from her husband, current mayor Oscar Goodman, after the race was called in her favor Tuesday, June 7, 2011. Photo by: Sam Morris
Isabelle Holman carries a tally board during Las Vegas mayoral candidate Carolyn Goodman's election night party at her campaign headquarters Tuesday, June 7, 2011. Photo by: Sam Morris
“Twenty points?” I said, feeling that number was high, as some polls were showing the race within five points. I also said to Cornthwaite, who backed Goodman during the campaign, that he would need a “hook” if he wanted to establish an actual betting line. He’d need to add or subtract a half-point for any point spread that prevents pushes.
“It needs to be 19½ or 20½,” I said.
“OK,” he said, “Then make it 20½.”
“To cover that, she’ll need to win by 21,” I said, making sure we had agreed on genuine Vegas-style betting odds.
“Got it covered,” he said. I joked that the number should be posted at the Beat Coffeehouse as the establishment’s first and only live betting line (for entertainment purposes, of course), but Cornthwaite wanted to keep his prediction quiet until after Election Night.
The night before the election, I ran into Cornthwaite again at the 49th wedding anniversary party for Oscar and Carolyn Goodman outside El Cortez. Cornthwaite reminded me of the pick and said the most recent poll numbers would prove him accurate.
On Election Night, after the polls closed, I got a text from him reading, “Do I win yet? 21!”
“Not until the final vote is counted,” I texted back.
The final official numbers: Goodman with 60.51 percent of the vote (33,104 votes), Giunchigliani with 39.49 percent (21,601).
That’s 21.02 percent.
Cornthwaite hit his own number.
As he said in a text when the final numbers came in, “Was there ever a doubt?”
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