Will a Democrat be Elected in the Mayoral Race?
Last year, Memphis voters correctly chose not to extend term limits for mayor and city council. Like council super-districts, there is no runoff for mayor. On the one hand, this is good because runoffs typically have extremely low turnouts and are a waste of taxpayer dollars. On the other hand, no runoff is bad because a candidate can win an election by a plurality with a very small percentage of the vote. D.A. Steve Mulroy and I, along with many others, attempted to change this through instant runoff voting, which Memphis voters approved twice. Unfortunately, our deeply red state legislature has put a pause on that going into effect. Another way to rid ourselves of this conundrum would be partisan primaries in city elections. Even though we supposedly have 9 Democrats on a 13 member body, the city council would not put partisan city elections up for a vote.
Our city council is now the anomaly amongst our various governing bodies that votes against Democratic measures while being majority Democratic. I say this because blue blood business special interests stand to gain more than anyone else from nonpartisan races. Through nonpartisan races, Republicans can sometimes be elected in blue districts. In 2019, this was done through heavy spending on bland messaging and phony ballots, the latter of which we hope to rid ourselves of now through the courts (appeals to our win are pending).
As stated before, this leaves us with a field where anyone could win mayor with a small percentage of the vote. To make matters even more chaotic, there is the chance that candidate(s) will file a lawsuit challenging Allan Wade’s opinion over residency requirements for mayor. This would potentially affect three of the top candidates, if successful, and it would change the dynamics of the race.
Lawsuit aside, the current group of candidates running for mayor stretch across various points of the political spectrum. The currently announced candidates include former County Commission Chair Van Turner, Minority Leader/State Rep. Karen Camper, Chair of the Shelby County Board of Education Michelle McKissack, Former Mayor Willie Herenton, Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Councilman Frank Colvett, President and CEO of the Memphis Downtown Commission Paul Young, former County Commissioner J.W. Gibson, and former T.V. personality/Alex Jones regular Judge Joe Brown.
It is frequently argued that there is no Democratic or Republican way to take out the trash and that city elections are non-partisan; however, plenty of partisan issues come up on the city council and voters take notice and regularly vote party locally. The current fear amongst insiders is that the Democrats running will split the vote so much that a Republican could win mayor. This would be a pretty difficult feat to accomplish because the city is a solid 75% Democratic; if candidates run properly on party, it should be extremely difficult for a R to win. This is especially true when one considers that Floyd Bonner, J.W. Gibson, Paul Young, and Frank Colvett all four have good reasons to court Republican voters. Floyd Bonner, though a Democrat by affiliation, ran unopposed for Sheriff and has heavy Republican support in the suburbs, though the ‘burbs won’t vote in a city election. J.W. Gibson, who wrote himself a $300k check for his campaign, has many ties in Republican circles. Paul Young, before working for the Downtown Commission, worked for Republican County Mayor Mark Luttrell. Frank Colvett is the most known for being a Republican in the field, but, even if he receives the Republican Party’s endorsement (another reason to laugh at city races being described as nonpartisan), he will have to compete with others for Republican votes.
Because of the above, I have a difficult time seeing Republicans consolidate their vote enough to win mayor of a 75% Democratic city. Impossible? Of course not, but I would argue it is unlikely, even with the Democratic vote split. That being said, the city elections are not typically 75% D to 25% R in that the turnout is much older and more conservative than what we see in federal and state general elections, which is why I believe they should all be merged into one. We were heading in this direction, but, unfortunately, Mayor Strickland put a stop to this when he was a councilman, arguing the long ballot would cause confusion and voter drop-off. While that is a reasonable argument, our city elections would have been much more (d)emocratic had we allowed our local elections to be held with our state and federal elections.
Speaking of the Democratic vote split, former mayor Willie Herenton received 28.7% of the vote in 2019. Because so much of his vote is amongst the older populations, you would assume his vote would go down some this time around, but 20% or so may be all it takes to win. That is why candidates favored by activists like Van Turner and Karen Camper will have to consolidate as much of the Democratic vote as possible in order to prevent a Herenton victory.
Sadly, one thing we learned from Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 is that being a reality television star provides high name recognition and can help in politics in ways that would have hurt candidates in more stable/less-polarized times. This means that Judge Joe Brown has about as much of a chance as many other candidates running, and this point personally terrifies me. Having met Judge Joe Brown and listened to him on multiple occasions, I believe he would be the worst case scenario for our city. When he ran for D.A. in 2014, he accused his Republican opponent of being a lesbian…Now, he is a frequent character on Alex Jones’ conspiracy-theory riddled disinformation show. I am no preacher, but God please help us if Judge Joe Brown is elected as Memphis City Mayor.
Since 2019, I have been saying that city election turnout is up or down depending on which party is in the White House. 2015 was a much redder year for city elections, whereas 2019 was much bluer. Prove my theory wrong by talking to your neighbors, and let’s create the kind of turnout that gives us a Democratic Mayor.
Written by John Marek