Warwick’s mayoral race shaped up to be one of the most unusual in the state this year.

Incumbent mayor Frank Picozzi, an independent, faced two challengers this year – another independent, Patrick Maloney, and Democratic challenger Leah Hazelwood. With the unusual partisan makeup, predictions for how the race would go ranged from a Picozzi blowout to a small Hazelwood victory.

Perhaps no municipality in the state showed the importance of early voting more than Warwick, where mail ballots had already flipped the result of a primary. Jack Kirby won the Democratic nomination for Ward 7 by 12 votes over Steve Mulcahey after receiving 43 mail ballots to Mulcahey’s 15.

Warwick led the way statewide throughout early voting in the general election, with 16,397 early voters- combining for 25.8% of the city’s 63,536 registered voters. The only other municipalities in the state to reach five digits were Cranston, Providence, East Providence and South Kingstown. Of those 16,397, most- 11,583- opted to vote early in-person, with the remaining 4,814 casting mail ballots, according to the Rhode Island Board of Elections.

On Monday – the final day of early voting – Warwick showed out more than it had even to that point. The line to vote wrapped around City Hall, with voters standing outside for upwards of an hour on the cool autumn day.

Hazelwood, who had been standing outside City Hall all morning, said that the line at noon – still wrapping around the building – was actually shorter than it had been that morning.

“It’s great to see this level of turnout,” Hazelwood said. “The line’s still wrapping around inside, too; it’s like waiting at Disney World in there.”

Hazelwood was buoyed by the support some of those voters had showed her. As voters cast their ballots and the election moved into full swing, she projected confidence.

Election Day, though, proved to be anything but close. Picozzi won with 72.5% of the vote, Hazelwood picked up 19.7% and Maloney finished with 7.5%.

The mood at Picozzi’s headquarters was jubilant early Tuesday night.

“I don’t have everything in yet, but it’s a landslide,” Picozzi said to applause at his campaign headquarters 12 minutes after the polls closed.

Picozzi credited his record, saying the city was better off than when he was first elected.

“We’ve rebuilt infrastructure, we have new fire trucks, garbage trucks,” Picozzi said. “We were unable to provide quality services four years ago, and we’ve done all this with federal money. There’s only been one tax increase in the last four years. People are just happy with the job.”

Over the next four years, he said, he is looking forward to building more in the city, noting that construction on the City Hall Plaza ice rink had just resumed that day. Picozzi said, though, that he would have preferred a two-year term, saying that it “keeps you on your toes.”

“There’s a lot of firsts,” Picozzi said. “I was the first Italian-American mayor, I was the first independent mayor, and now I’m the first one with four years.”

The mood at Hazelwood’s headquarters was significantly more subdued. Supporters were still gathered at 2283 Post Road after the race was called, with Hazelwood talking with family and friends.

Despite the loss, Hazelwood said that she was glad to see high turnout in the city, and she thanked her supporters

“I will continue to work for this city,” Hazelwood said.

Maloney started his night at Game On!, his videogame store on Namquid Drive, and later moved the party to The Rally, a few doors down from Picozzi’s party in the Airport Plaza. The two met up and shook hands later on Election Night.

Though he was upset at the loss, Maloney said he was more upset by Picozzi’s win, saying that the lawsuits filed by former employees of the city’s Water Division were damning and that the city would go bankrupt under Picozzi’s leadership.

“The 30,000 people that voted for Picozzi voted in favor of sexual harassment and anti-Semitism,” Maloney said. “Picozzi’s going to cost this city millions of dollars with these lawsuits. … The only reason we made it through these past few years was federal dollars dropped in his lap.”

Council picks up rookie in Ward 7; recount request in Ward 4

The Warwick GOP started its election season with the goal of gaining a seat, and saw some significant opportunities when four incumbent councilors decided not to run for reelection.

An independent candidate, though, gave local Democrats the biggest scare of the night.

Joanne Miller, the independent candidate in Ward 4, is now calling for a recount after taking Democratic candidate Salvatore DeLuise down to the wire.

Ward 4’s race had some unusual elements, as the initial Democratic candidate, Mike Penta, announced shortly after the primary that he was moving to East Greenwich, therefore ending his campaign. DeLuise, the owner of DeLuise Bakery in Providence, stepped in shortly before the deadline to run on the Democratic side.

Miller was the sole challenger and led her Democratic opponent after early in-person and Election Day votes were counted.

It would ultimately be the mail ballots, which were counted last, that would put DeLuise ahead in the initial count, as he received 259 to Miller’s 141. That was enough to put him ahead by a margin of 49 votes, picking up 50.2% of the initial count to Miller’s 49.1%.

Miller called for a recount, saying that she was concerned about the mail ballots and noting that the race was close enough for her to request one.

“Around 10:30 p.m., I was 72 votes ahead,” Miller stated in her request to the Board of Elections for a recount. “Someone texted me at 12:20 a.m. congratulating me on my win. When I woke up around 2 a.m., Mr. DeLuise was ahead by 46 votes. What time did the counting actually end?”

The other uncontested council seats proved to be relatively close affairs as well. In the race to succeed Tim Howe in Ward 3, Democrat Bryan Nappa took 54.4% of the votes against Republican Richard Cascella. In the race to succeed longtime incumbent Donna Travis in Ward 6, Democrat Bill Muto took 56.6% of the vote against Republican Beth Lane Italiane.

The one exception was the race to replace outgoing council president Stephen McAllister in Ward 7, where Democrat John Kirby picked up his first election win handily. He won 59.5% of the vote; each of his independent opponents – Roger Ceresi and Jeffrey Chapdelaine – finished with 19% of the vote.

Ward 2 Councilman Jeremy Rix and Ward 5 Councilman Ed Ladouceur, the only incumbents in contested races, both won easily as well. Ladouceur took 59.6% of the vote against independent Michael Koerner and Rix won with 63.7% of the vote against Republican Bill Paola.

At the city’s Democratic headquarters – Tavern 12, next door to Hazelwood’s watch party at All Stars Subs – the city’s Democrats anxiously watched as results came in. Though DeLuise was one of two Democratic council candidates not present, the other being Ladouceur, other candidates called him throughout the night, reassuring him that he was in a fine position.

Though he was not in a competitive race, Vincent Gebhart, Ward 9’s councilman, said that he wanted to set up an event for the city’s party to watch the results together and celebrate their wins in the city.

Gebhart said that he was happy to call Kirby, Muto and Nappa his future colleagues, and expressed confidence that DeLuise would pull the Ward 4 race out.