To no one’s surprise, the favored presidential candidates of both political parties dominated in local Super Tuesday voting, while Shelby County is destined to have a new General Sessions Court clerk.
County Democrats nominated longtime activist Tami Sawyer for clerk. Sawyer finished with a 2,000-vote edge over incumbent Joe Brown (12,182 to 10,157) and easily out-pointed Shelandra Ford (3,454) and Rheunte E. Benson (2,683)
The Republican nominee for clerk is Lisa Arnold, who was unopposed with 19,397 votes.
Sawyer, who will be heavily favored, and Arnold will vie in the county general election on August 1st, the date also of primaries for state and federal positions.
It was no contest for Donald Trump in local GOP presidential-preference voting. The former president out-polled his only active opponent, Nikki Haley (12,204 to 4,961), in Congressional District 8, and 9,020 to 3,095 in District 9.
President Joe Biden won 27,286 votes to 1,491 for uncommitted in the two districts.
Dwayne Thompson. Photo: Tennessee General Assembly
Dwayne Thompson, the Democratic legislator whose upset victory in a suburban state House District in 2016 ousted a Republican incumbent and gave local Democrats something to cheer about in that Trump year, is taking his leave.
He will not be seeking reelection in District 96.
“I’ve seen the General Assembly become ever more unresponsive and spiteful under the current Republican supermajority leadership. I’ve served 4 terms. This has one of the honors of my life to have my community allowed to represent them in the Tennessee State House. However, I need to spend more time with family and other priorities.,” said Thompson, who expressed confidence that he would be succeeded by a Democrat in the forthcoming 2024 election.
Thompson’s defeat of the GOP’s Steve McManus, who had served several terms in District 96, was unexpected, but it was only the first of four successive wins for Thompson — including victories over Republicans Scott McCormick and Patricia Possel.
In the course of Thompson’s four terms, the district, which bridged East Memphis with sections of Germantown, changed demographically, and by the time it was gerrymandered by the Republican supermajority in 2022 to run east-west across the northern rim of Memphis, it has clearly shifted from Republican to Democratic dominance.
The district’s new configuration, making it even more solidly Democratic, was a de facto concession to that fact.
Thompson, whose boyish appearance and energetic conduct of his office belies his 73 years, said he was confident that he would be succeeded by a younger, aggressive Democrat. At the time of his election, Thompson was a retired Human Resources administrator.
Local Democrats are currently hoping that Democratic businessman Jesse Huseth, who is targeting GOP incumbent John Gillespie this year, can inaugurate a new Democratic tenure in the adjacent district 97.
The Memphis Flyer has confirmed that Mayor Paul Young and a veteran public official now serving in Nashville are in continuing conversations about her possible employment here. This would be Maura Black Sullivan, a native Memphian who now holds the position of chief operating officer of Nashville Public Schools.
Sullivan, who previously served as deputy COO for former Memphis Mayor AC Wharton and later COO for former Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, confirmed that conversations with Young are ongoing for the position of his chief administrative officer.
On Tuesday of this week, the city council will deal with more unfinished business — including a controversial health care allowance for council members of two terms’ service or more, and a decision on yet another mayoral appointment — this one of public works director Robert Knecht.
A vote on Knecht, whom Mayor Paul Young submitted for renomination week before last, was deferred after council chairman JB Smiley publicly criticized Knecht for “attitude” issues and asked for the deferral.
Several of Young’s cabinet choices were viewed negatively by Smiley and other council members — notably police chief C.J. Davis, whose reappointment the council narrowly rejected via a 7-6 vote. (She was later given an interim apoointment by Young, pending a later reexamination by the council.)
An issue with several council members as well has been unease at the Mayor’s inability so far to complete his team with credentialed new appointees in other positions. He has not yet named permanent appointees for the key positions of chief operating officer and chief financial officer, for example.
That circumstance could change soon. Sullivan is frank to say that she has not been in a job search, enjoys her present circumstances in Nashville and has made no decision to leave them, but acknowledges that a possible return to Memphis would be attractive as well.”
Sullivan is the daughter of the late Dave Black, a featured radio broadcaster of many years in Memphis, and the late Kay Pittman Black, who was a well-known journalist and government employee here.
She is married to another former Memphian, Jeff Sullivan. The couple have a son, Jack, who is a student at Rhodes College.
Update: Since publishing this article online, Mayor Young clarified to the Flyer: “I can confirm that we had early talks with Maura Sullivan about a different position with the Young administration, not the COO/CAO position. We have a strong leader currently acting in the COO role who has my full faith and confidence.”
The mayor’s spokesperson/CCO, Penelope Huston, added: “The role we initially discussed was a high level position on the Mayor’s cabinet. And while talks about that position haven’t continued, we do have an ongoing dialogue with her and many others who we consider allies in the work of creating a stronger Memphis.”
The backstory of Mayor Paul Young’s last-minute appointment of Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis to remain as interim police chief: He acted preemptively to stave off a council resolution that would have mandated a similar outcome.
The council resolution, prepared by member Jeff Warren, called for a five-month pause during which the council would measure Davis’ performance in office according to a scale of “metrics,” the nature of which had yet to be devised.
Reportedly, eight council members had committed to the resolution, more than enough for passage.
Confronted with the fact of the resolution’s imminent introduction on Tuesday, Mayor Young made the impromptu decision, with minutes to spare, to make the interim appointment of Davis.
It is understood that the council still has authority to assert its will on Davis’ tenure and, in reaching an ultimate judgment, will avail itself of the aforementioned package of still-to-be-arrived-at metrics. The council will vote again on Davis’ status in June, as called for in the resolution.
The resolution read as follows:
WHEREAS, in the wake of a new Administration, the Memphis City Council received presentations from Mayor Young’s prospective appointees to head each division of the City of Memphis; and
WHEREAS, in anticipation of the vote to reappoint Police Services Chief Davis, the Council has received numerous messages from its constituents, expressing their concerns about the state of crime in Memphis, and the need for effective leadership to reduce it; and
WHEREAS, the Council recognizes that the City of Memphis’s public safety is of the utmost importance, and, as such, understands the importance of appointing or reappointing the individual who will be tasked with ensuring the safety of our communities; and
WHEREAS, during the January 9th Council meeting, both Council Members and Chief Davis shed light on some internal issues amongst Police Services, in addition to external issues that have contributed to an increase in crime in our city; and
WHEREAS, to address these issues, it is the intent of the Council to gather further data as to the effectiveness of Chief Davis, and to determine the needs of the Memphis Police Department that will best aid them in their goal to reduce crime before voting on Chief Davis reappointment.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Memphis City Council hereby postpones the vote on the reappointment of MPD Chief C.J. Davis until the second Council meeting in June of 2024. In the interim, the Chairman of the Memphis City Council shall appoint a Council Member to confer with the Administration and other stakeholders to compile a list of expectations and metrics for the next 5 months to assess Chief Davis’ ability to address internal MPD issues and to reduce crime: these expectations and metrics shall be shared with the Members of the Memphis City Council and the public in advance of the reappointment.
Election results of the 2023 Memphis city election are due to be certified by the Election Commission on Monday, October 16th, but there is a middling-sized controversy about the outcome.
Chief objector so far is one Jerred Price, the entrepreneur, activist, and entertainer who, most recently, was a candidate for City Council in Super District 8, Position 3.
Price lost that election, or so the numbers indicate. In a multi-candidate race, he came up third behind Brian Harris and the winner, Yolanda Cooper-Sutton, whose campaign was, to say the least, low-profile.
But wait a minute! Price, who is anything but bashful, is now telling anybody who will listen that the city election was compromised — and he may have a point, perhaps.
In a development that was treated more back-burner than perhaps it should have been by the media at large, a worker for the Election Commission reported a burglary of her car, which was parked in the Glenview area overnight Wednesday, October 4th.
Among the missing contents, she told police the next day — which was election day — were $1200 in cash, as well as keys to ballot boxes and election codes. The culprit was later apprehended and the items returned, and the story was reported on WATN, Channel 24.
At the time a statement was issued by the Election Commission denying that election codes had been stolen and maintaining that “the complete integrity of the October 5th election remained in place and without compromise.”
That didn’t satisfy Price, who vented accounts of the incident on social media and questioned how it was that such items as were reported stolen were allowed out of the Election Office in the first place.
Ultimately, he would circulate what he said was an emailed response to him from County Election Coordinator Linda Phillips. In what seems an unusually chatty tone, Phillips’s message to Price went as follows [our italics added]:
“I am sure you are disappointed about your loss last week, however, I would ask you to check your facts before you spread lies.
“While an inspector for the election had her car broken into, at no point was the election compromised in any way. Seriously, I thought you had more integrity than Trump.
“And I voted for you. If you have concerns, please go to the sources of accurate information. Twitter, Facebook, and NextDoor are not primary sources.”
Asked about the comments, Phillips did not deny writing them, and Price persists in contending that Phillips and/or the Election Commission owe a fuller response to the prospect that the election might have been compromised.
Former city council member Janet Hooks, who had as many friends as people she met and influenced in the course of a distinguished public career, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 70, according to a brief statement released by family members.
The statement notes: “Hooks is highly respected for her dedicated years of service to Memphis. She served on the Memphis City Council for 16 years. Following her term, she served in interim Mayor Myron Lowery’s and Mayor AC Wharton’s administration as the Director of Parks and Neighborhoods. Hooks was appointed by the Shelby County Commission as Special Advisor to the Shelby County Clerk in 2023.”
No specific cause of death is yet known, though a family member said Hooks was undergoing a bout with Covid. Arrangements, said the family statement, “will be shared in the coming days.” Serenity Funeral Home is in charge.
The statement lists as survivors: “her husband, former Shelby County Commission Chair and County Assessor, Michael Hooks, Sr.; a daughter, Kristin Hooks; two sons, Michael Hooks, Jr., and Marcus Hooks; a daughter-in-law, Judge Kenya Hooks; and two granddaughters, Morgan and Miranda Hooks; and special second daughter, Tami Sawyer.”
Typical of community response to her passing was this from Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen: “I met Janet Hooks when she was dating my fellow Tennessee Constitutional Convention delegate Michael Hooks in 1977, and I attended their Mud Island wedding. In her roles as a member of the City Council and as an advisor to Memphis Mayors Myron Lowery and A C Wharton, she served the city well. Beautiful and friendly, she was a devoted spouse and was dedicated to her family. Hers was a life well lived.”
Tennessee Attprney General Jonathan Skrmetti (Credit: Jackson Baker)
Speaking in Memphis on Tuesday, state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti laid equal stress on the importance of citizens’ voting on controversial matters and on his own exemption, as an appointed official, from such direct accountability.
The AG’s remarks, in a luncheon speech to the Rotary Club of Memphis, could be applied to a new state law giving his office jurisdiction of post-conviction appeals in death-penalty cases. The state legislature, in April, passed the measure, and Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan deemed it unconstitutional in July, ruling that such jurisdiction is the province of locally elected prosecutors.
The case is now on appeal by the state in the state Court of Criminal Appeals, with a decision expected by spring. The outcome will affect the destiny of Larry McKay, currently on death row for a 1981 double murder in Memphis, as well as any other potential post-conviction appeals involving requests for re-trials based on new evidence, DNA testing, or intellectual disability.
Should Judge Skahan’s ruling be upheld, the McKay case and any other such local one will be the responsibility of Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy.
In what seemed an indirect reference to the case, Skrmetti told the Rotarians “it’s very apparent of late that the legislature has been very active, passing some controversial legislation. And there’s been a lot of litigation about that. More and more people are turning to the courts, when they disagree with things. . . [But] at the end of the day, Tennessee is a democracy. And so when people don’t like the laws that are getting passed, there is a very ready solution out there. And that is to persuade people to vote differently, to persuade legislators to act differently.”
A few minutes later, in a Q&A with Rotary Club members, Skrmetti made a direct reference to the post-conviction issue. “There’s litigation about that, and we should find out from the Court of Criminal Appeals, which way it’s gonna go,”
Further on the matter of accountability, Skrmetti said, “As for the elected versus appointed issue. I’m a big fan of that. I mean, I’m a big beneficiary of the appointment process. … There is a problem if you have an elected AG, because ultimately, the purpose of the attorney general is to represent the legal interests of the state. And that means pursuing legal strategies that further the policies that the state adopts. It’s a servant role. So it’s not my job to say what the law should be. It’s the legislature and the governor to decide … ”
In Tennessee, the state Supreme Court appoints the Attorney General.
Aside from its theoretical aspects, the issue of accountability is a significant one for practical reasons in Tennessee, where public officials and agencies — especially in Davidson (Nashville) and Shelby Counties — increasingly lament what seems to them to be efforts by state government to enlarge the authority of the state vis-a-vis local options. Given the current supermajority control of state government by Republicans, the issue has a partisan aspect as well.
In Davidson County, there is an ongoing showdown between the DA there, Glenn Funk, and Skrmetti’s office, which launched an investigation — involving a surprise raid of Funk’s office — of possible illegal wiretapping by the Nashville DA.
Asked about his occasional interventions in other states’ legal pleadings via de facto amicus briefs (usually in tandem with other “Red states”) Skrmetti said his decisions were based on measuring the impact of such cases on Tennessee.
And he cautioned: “There are people who have politicized things that absolutely should not be political. In the criminal justice realm. There are discrete instances where there’s clear politicization going on. There are also accusations of politicization that are misinformation where there isn’t predication to bring a case, and people are bringing in. But because everybody thinks the other side is weaponizing everything and creates this tit for tat escalation. I’m really concerned about that. And there are people who have abused their authority, and there is absolutely a double standard and enforcement.”
Despite a widespread sense that the mayoral race would come down to — and past — the wire, it didn’t take long Thursday night for a winner to emerge. It’s Paul Young, the Downtown Memphis Commission CEO in his first first electoral effort.
Young’s lead was convincing early on to his major competitors — two of whom, Sheriff Floyd Bonner and former Mayor Willie Herenton, made early concession statements, Bonner at 9:15 and Herenton at 9:45. Former County Commissioner Van Turner was certain to follow in short order.
When it was his own time to speak, not long before the local TV channels’ 10 o’clock news, Young addressed his supporters at his Minglewood Hall election-night party, saying, “Our community needs leadership. And it’s time for the next generation to take us into a new way. We acknowledge the challenges that we see, but I’m optimistic. I believe in our city. I believe and I believe in every one of you. We want a future that we’ve never seen. And that’s what we’re going to do together.”
Young reminisced about conversations he had with his father, the late Bishop William Young, when he made his announcement for mayor a year ago. “And he was asking me if was I going to run, and I was like, I don’t know. Because I know the weight of the job. I know what it means to be in that seat. And I just don’t know if we’re ready for that. And Bishop Young in all of his wisdom, said, I hear you.”
Young’s victory was no doubt clinched already in the early-voting that ended last Saturday. The election-day voting total, in the neighborhood of 20,000, was dismal — in large part due to an all-day drizzle.
It quickly became apparent that, given the inevitable distribution of votes over a 17-candidate spread, election-day voting would not be enough to provide an extra boost to any candidate hoping to rise above his early-vote showing.
Irrelevant, finally, were advance indications that a perceived tilt toward older voters during early voting might help the likes of Bonner and Herenton and blunt the momentum of Young and his youth movement.
Instead, Young demonstrated that his appeal was fairly universal, more so than any other candidate. It was Bonner’s quick read of the early numbers that convinced him to concede as early as he did, though that was a decision that buffaloed more than one set of TV analysts.
Final totals for the top tier in the Mayor’s race were 24.408 for Young, 19,895 for Bonner, 18,990 for Herenton and 18,778 for Turner. A large second tier of candidates finished well out of the running. Businessman J.W Gibson netted 2,175, and Michelle McKissack had 1,437. Seven other candidates would trail even more distantly.
courtesy of Perry Strategies
In city council races there were few surprises
District 1: Incumbent Rhonda Logan was an easy winner, with 6,122 votes as against opponent Kymberley Kelley’s 1,961.
District 2: As expected, former Councilman Scott McCormick is destined for a runoff with opponent Jerry Green, who serves as policy advisor to County Mayor Lee Harris. McCormick’s vote total was5,492; Green’s, 3,755.
District 3: Activist Pearl Walker, with 2,645 votes, finds herself in a runoff with James Kirkwood, a former ranking MPD officer, who had 2,307 votes.
District 4: Incumbent Jana Swearengen-Washington, with 7,866 votes, easily dispatched former interim councilwoman Teri Dockery, with 2,906.
District 5: The outcome here was a bit surprising, in that former councilman Philip Spinosa and activist Meggan Wurzburg Kiel were thought to be running neck-and-neck. Spinosa wins by 8,860 votes to her 6,936.
District 6: Incumbent Edmond Ford Jr won easily, with 10,138 votes over several challengers.
District 7: Incumbent Michalyn Easter-Thomas, perhaps impeded by allegations that her employment by Memphis River Parks Partnership, a city-affiliated group, was a conflict of interest, led her race with 3,936 votes But she did not command a majority and will be in a runoff with her closest contender, Jimmy Hassan, who had 1,471 votes.
The at-large races in Super Districts 8 and 9 did not allow for a runoff.
District 8-1 was won by the unopposed incumbent, JB Smiley, with 33,607 votes
Districty 8-2 saw Janika White, with 26,304, outdistance three other contenders.
District 8-3 saw Yolanda Cooper-Sutton with 9,407 votes over her nearest competitor Brian Harris, who had 7,601 votes, and Jerred Price who had 6,944.
District 9-1 saw incumbent Chase Carlisle with 29,091 votes, turn away challenger Benji Smith, who had 13,155.
In District 9-2, incumbent Ford Canale, with 26 719 votes, defeated Brandon Washingtonl, with 16, 127.
Incumbent Jeff Warren, unopposed, had 36,538 vote3s in District 9-3.
Memphis City Hall (Photo: Thomas R Machnitzki via Wikimedia Commons)
In this last week of the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race, there are no doubt many lessons to be learned. One of them is surely that, with four leading candidates running neck-to-neck here at the end, we have outlived the 1991 judicial settlement imposed on at-large city races by the late federal judge Gerald Turner.
The four candidates are, alphabetically, Floyd Bonner, Shelby County Sheriff; Willie Herenton, a five-times-elected former city mayor; Van Turner, a former county commissioner and, until recently, NAACP head; and Paul Young, president and CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission.
All are well-credentialed, and all have had their moments during the demanding year-long contest now concluding.
All of them, consonant with the city’s largely Black demographic, are African-American, a fact rendering the existing no-runoff provision obsolete and irrelevant.
What none of them will have — and you can bet on it — is a majority of votes from their fellow citizens. One of them will win by a plurality, and probably a razor-thin one as well. (For the record, there are 13 other mayoral candidates on the ballot, who will run distantly behind the leaders.)
Here is a brief rundown on the circumstances confronting each of the four leading candidates — once again rendered alphabetically.
Floyd Bonner: Twice-elected comfortably as the Democratic candidate for sheriff, Floyd Bonner began his run a year ago as the probable front-runner but has been cast since in a villain’s role by critics, mainly on the political left, who see the number of jail deaths on his watch to be a scandal. Bonner’s hard-line position on crime will sway many votes from law-and-order advocates and from Republicans, whose party officially “recommended” him. And he’s still in the running, though events — especially the recent indictment of his jailers in the Gershun Freeman case — have unmistakably damaged his chances.
Willie Herenton: Against most people’s expectations, the former mayor, who led the city for 17 years in fairly recent political history, was originally thought of widely as just an Auld Lang Syne candidate. But, as a variety of unofficial polls (where he led) made obvious, he still has standing among numerous inner-city Memphians. And the 83-year-old Herenton has exuded an air of authority, coupled with his promise of “tough love” for juvenile offenders, that to some degree crosses demographic lines. In theory, however — and probably in reality — there’s an ABH (Anybody-but-Herenton) lobby that is busy in these late hours trying to decide which of the other candidates has the best chance of turning him back.
Van Turner: The ex-county commission chair and former Democratic Party chair and, until recently, the local head of the NAACP, has been, more or less publicly, nursing mayoral ambitions for years. And, in advance of running, he was boosted by his well-known efforts on behalf of expunging Confederate monuments, as well as by his highly visible role in reacting to the Tyre Nichols tragedy and other such outrages. But he started slow, both in fundraising and in campaign mechanics, and he didn’t mount a real surge until these last couple of weeks, when he got prestige endorsements from several ranking Democrats and a serious infusion of independent-expenditure cash from one of them, state Representative Justin Pearson. As final election day grew near, Turner was giving opponent Paul Young a real tussle for late-breaking votes from progressives.
Paul Young: The Downtown Memphis Commission CEO has youth on his side (both his own and among what polls indicate to be a tide of millennial and Gen Z voters). He also benefited from a fundraising bonanza that ran to more than a million dollars and was fed significantly by established commercial interests, and from the fact that, as a campaigner, he avoided any gaffes as such and was never, in any true sense, off the clock. A longtime cog in major appointive positions, both city and country, but a first-time candidate for political office, he developed a degree of support from most major factions of the electorate. The most unusual aspect of his campaign was that, for better or for worse, he never articulated any platform ideas that could be considered specific. He was for better education, for economic development, for an answer to poverty, etc., etc., and that was pretty much as far as it went. The most impressive — and most convincing — part of his appeal was his assertion that he was not interested in “politics,” but just wanted to “do the work.” As indicated, he was vying with Turner for late-breaking progressive votes, and the outcome of that struggle could be decisive for his hopes.
What early voting, now ended, demonstrated was a tilt toward older voters. If election day continues the pattern, that would enhance the possibility of a dead heat involving two or more of the top four candidates.
Citing a new poll conducted last week by the Change Research firm, the People for Justice and Fairness (PJF), an activist group supporting Van Turner for mayor contends that “when Memphians learn about Van Turner, he surges to the top of the mayoral race.”
What that translates into is that Turner led, with a final figure of 23 percent, in a final tabulation of multi-stage polling. In that version, percentages for other leading candidates were: Floyd Bonner, 21; Paul Young, 21; Willie Herenton, 14.
Turner rose to the top once the poll results (a) included the category of “leaning” and (b) included a brief bio of the top candidates (the three aforementioned).
Some observers would call that a “push poll.” As defined in a previous article in this space about another candidate’s self-released poll: “Anyone familiar with political polling would be inclined to associate that procedure with what is called a ‘push poll’ — one which builds a desired outcome into the very form of the questioning. The idea is simple: The better the ‘biography,’ the better the poll numbers. And the skimpier or less positive the bio, the lower would be the numbers.”
Anecdotal evidence would also suggest that Turner’s campaign has made serious advances since gaining several recent prestige endorsements — from Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, Congressman Steve Cohen, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, and state Representative Justin J. Pearson. (Pearson has also made substantial financial contributions to Turner through a Political Action Committee.)
As indicated, the initial stage of the questionnaire totaled answers from respondents who had already made their final picks, and Paul Young led, with the previously mentioned 21 percent.
The numbers shifted when results from those respondents undecided but leaning toward specific candidates were added. Results were: Young, 22 percent; Bonner, 17 percent; Herenton, 16 percent; and Turner, 12 percent.
After the further addition of the bios, Turner ended up ahead, with the previously indicated lead of 23 percent.
The bios added for this third stage of polling were as follows below. (Readers can judge for themselves whether the bios, which seem to be posed fairy neutrally would tend to tilt the voting to a particular candidate.):
“Van Turner, esteemed attorney, Memphis NAACP president, and former Shelby County Commissioner, has a rich background in leadership and civil rights advocacy. He knows that to increase public safety we must fight crime at its roots with improved housing, bolstered education jobs, reliable infrastructure, and economic opportunity. Turner has the proven track record we need to keep Memphis safe.
“Paul Young, President and CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission, seeks the mayoral office with a vision of improving public safety, bolstering the economy, and revitalizing neighborhoods. Young will use his business background to stimulate job creation, foster local entrepreneurship, and invest in youth. His mayoral agenda also emphasizes tackling blight and enhancing Memphis’s vibrant culture. Young aims to make Memphis a better place to live for all.
“Floyd Bonner, Shelby County Sheriff, will make fighting crime his #1 priority as Mayor of Memphis. Bonner plans to aggressively recruit more police officers, expand data and community policing, and hold accountable the people who threaten our community. Committed to making safety the backbone of prosperity, Bonner is ready to tackle the challenges facing Memphis.
“Now that you’ve read some more, if the general election for the Mayor were held today and the candidates were the following, who would you vote for?“
Factoring into the selection of those to be polled — according to the press release from PFJ, along with Stand for Children, and Movement for Justice — were aspects of “age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, region, and [preference in] the 2020 presidential vote.” The following rundown applies to that last aspect, the respondents’ presidential vote in 2020:
69% Joe Biden, the Democrat 22% Donald Trump, the Republican 1% Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian 0% Not registered/Too young/Ineligible 8% Did not vote
It should be noted that, of all the mayoral candidates, Turner, a former chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party, has identified himself most strongly with the Democratic Party and its goals.
The press release states, “With strong union backing and an undeniable momentum growing day by day, this people-powered campaign is poised to shape the future of Memphis to one that is bright for all.”
