Maybe it was the butterfly ballot…..
Oh, there was no butterfly ballot?
There were numerous surprise results Tuesday night, when all the ballots cast in early voting and on election day were counted.
Among them:
— MAYOR’S RACE: While former County Commissioner Deidre Malone’s victory in the Democratic primary for Shelby County Mayor was no great surprise, the close second place finish of the Rev. Kennth Whalum Jr. was. Whalum raised no money, did no advertising, made few appearances, and left the country for 10 days in the stretch run.
University of Memphis law professor and outgoing County Commissioner Steve Mulroy has to be disappointed at his third-place finish, but, between Malone’s rank-and-file support and big-time endorsements (A C Wharton and The Commercial Appeal, among others), on one hand, and Whalum’s name recognition and obvious grass-roots support on the other, Mulroy’s 30-odd percent doesn’t look so bad.
— DISTRICT 10, DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY, COUNTY COMMISSION: The largely absent Martavius Jones’ near-win over the well-backed and well-funded Reginald Milton was a near miracle. Former School Board member Jones raised no money, spent no money, showed up at no events, etc., etc. Still, he almost won and came so close that he could, and probably will, ask for a recount. Unsurprisingly, Jake Brown turned out to be not much of a factor.
— DISTRICT 9, DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY, COUNTY COMMISSION: A bona fide three-way between incumbent Justin Ford, former School Board member Patrice Robinson, and Memphis Education Association president Keith Williams. Incumbency plus the Ford name may have boosted what was almost a stealth campaign by Ford.
— PROBATE COURT CLERK, DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY: In the most populated field of any contested position, with seven (7) contenders, the winner was one William Chism, previously unknown but the lucky owner of a surname owned by at least two other active politicians — current County Commissioner Sidney Chism (not a candidate this year) and George Chism, a GOP activist who won his Commission 2 primary race this year. What’s in a name? Right.
— CIRCUIT COURT CLERK, DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY: Granted, it has often been jested that the ever-contentious Del Gill, worry-wart to two generations of fellow Democratic activists, would have trouble winning an election in which he was the only candidate. But his two-to-one victorious opponent Tuesday, Rhonda Banks, is also unique — as the only candidate to confess in a public forum that she really had no idea what the job she was running for entailed.
Those are some of the major surprises. Now, before listing the rest of the results, what can we glean from these cases about causative factors or general trends?
Answer: Not too much. Many of the candidates in several races had some role in the prolonged educational struggles of the last few years for example, but Martavius Jones and Kenneth Whalum, two of the surprise near-missers, were on opposite sides of the charter-surrender issue that began the school crisis; so it wasn’t one point of view or the other that made a difference.
Name recognition? Maybe. That would certainly explain the victory of the aforementioned William Chism in a crowded field, and it obviously helped Justin Ford win his three-way race. So did incumbency in Ford’s case. Democratic activist Eddie Jones had run close enough and often enough in earlier races to make the difference, perhaps, in the crowded District 11 Commission race.
County Commissioner Henri Brooks’ easy victory over Kenneth Moody for the Democratic nomination for Juvenile Court Clerk owes something to name recognition, too, but she also profited from the publicity she achieved in her successful campaign to get the Department of Justice to mandate reforms in Juvenile Court.
Another suggestion comes from 9th District congressman Steve Cohen, who notes that many of the winners had their names first on the ballot in their races. This might indeed have been a factor, especially for a voter in a hurry moving down the ballot.
Endorsements? Hard to see a pattern there. Judge Joe Brown, the de facto Democratic nominee for District Attorney General, was thought early on the have more than usual clout, but none of his endorsees came out ahead. A C Wharton? Certainly , the mayor’s endorsement of Malone, as indicated, helped, but his full-out support of John Freeman in the Democratic primary for County Clerk still left Freeman finishing third. In the Democratic primary for Mayor, Steve Mulroy made a clean sweep of the union endorsements, but he, too, finished third.
Representative Cohen was, on the endorsement scale, 4 for 4. He endorsed winners Melvin Burgess, Willie Brooks, and Reginald Milton in Commission races, and Cheyenne Johnson in the Democratic primary for assessor.
The one given in this first of three election cycles scheduled for 2014 is the fact of low turnout — only 8 percent of the registered voters, 5 percent of whom cast their ballots early. Despite gorgeously sunny weather on Tuesday, people obviously had other things on their mind and better things to do than to vote. The total number of voters was even appreciably below the levels of the May primaries of four years ago, when the positions were roughly the same.
So what happens in a low-turnout election? All other factors being equal, the campaign which has the most enthusiastic cadres and the best-organized means of getting them to the polls will win. Malone, for one, seems to have had such an edge.
One other factor worth mentioning: It is no secret that voters’ party identification has tended to polarize by race, with white voters moving toward the Republican Party and African-American voters generally going Democratic. Activists in both parties have made serious efforts toward broadening their reach beyond those boundaries, with minimal success.
Cases in point for the Democrats in this cycle were white candidates Mulroy, Freeman, David Vinciarelli in the District 8 Commission race, Brown in District 10, Michael McCusker in the Criminal Court Clerk’s race, and Aaron Hall and Heidi Kuhn in the Probate Court Clerk’s race. To be sure, some of these candidacies were more serious than others. The point is that no white Democrat won a race in a bi-racial field, and make of that what you will.
And, though there were only two black candidacies on the Republican side — Kelly Price in the four-way race for County Commission District 3 (won by school board veteran David Reaves, closely trailed by Sherry Simmons) and Michael Finney in the Circuit Court Clerk’s race easily won by incumbent Jimmy Moore — the same principle has applied historically.
There is, of course, a crossover instinct in the voting population (which, however, the right circumstance or individual has to activate). It has benefited, among others, Steve Cohen, Mayor AC Wharton, and County Mayor Mark Luttrell, who romped to a wipeout win over the hapless Ernest Lunati in the GOP mayoral primary.
It remains to be seen, in a county whose demographics would seem on the surface to be trending Democratic and African-American, whether Malone, a sunny presence, an able campaigner, and a well-credentialed candidate whose business success as a P.R. executive helped her both reputation-wise and strategy-wise, has a chance of beating Luttrell, whose crossover totals, both racial and partisan, have always been better than good.
In any case, the August 7th county general election, which shares ballot space with beaucoup races for judge and with state and federal primaries, should beget a substantially better turnout than did the county primaries. And, besides the mayor’s race, which could be close, the race for District Attorney General — between Democrat Joe Brown and Republican incumbent Amy Weirich — should be a doozy as well.
Here, according to unofficial Election Commission totals, is how it all went:
DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL (Republican)
AMY WEIRICH
16,847
99.56%
Write-In
75
0.44%
TOTAL
16,922
100.00%
DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL (Democratic)
JOE BROWN
33,031
98.07%
Write-In
649
1.93%
TOTAL
33,680
100.00%
COUNTY MAYOR (Republican)
ERNEST LUNATI
595
3.41%
MARK H. LUTTRELL
16,821
96.45%
Write-In
25
0.14%
TOTAL
17,441
100.00%
COUNTY MAYOR (Democratic)
DEIDRE MALONE
13,785
35.77%
STEVE MULROY
12,041
31.24%
KENNETH WHALUM, JR.
12,598
32.69%
Write-In
114
0.30%
TOTAL
38,538
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 1 (Republican)
TERRY ROLAND
1,342
99.19%
Write-In
11
0.81%
TOTAL
1,353
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 1 (Democatic
Write-In
87
100.00%
TOTAL
87
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 2 (Republican)
DAVID C. BRADFORD
1,315
45.72%
GEORGE CHISM
1,560
54.24%
Write-In
1
0.03%
TOTAL
2,876
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 2 (Democatic)
Write-In
57
100.00%
TOTAL
57
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 3 (Republican)
NASER FAZLULLAH
151
4.04%
KELLY D. PRICE
168
4.50%
DAVID REAVES
1,835
49.10%
SHERRY S. SIMMONS
1,581
42.31%
Write-In
2
0.05%
TOTAL
3,737
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 3 (Democatic)
Write-In
75
100.00%
TOTAL
75
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 4 (Republican)
MARK BILLINGSLEY
2,323
63.31%
RON FITTES
1,345
36.66%
Write-In
1
0.03%
TOTAL
3,669
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 4 (Democatic)
JACKIE D. JACKSON
978
97.90%
Write-In
21
2.10%
TOTAL
999
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 5 (Republican)
HEIDI SHAFER
1,082
99.36%
Write-In
7
0.64%
TOTAL
1,089
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 5 (Democratic)
TAYLOR BERGER
830
98.11%
Write-In
16
1.89%
TOTAL
846
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 6 (Republican)
DAVID M. SHIFFMAN
386
98.22%
Write-In
7
1.78%
TOTAL
393
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 6 (Democratic)
KARL L. BOND
267
9.92%
WILLIE BROOKS
1,759
65.37%
EDITH ANN MOORE
406
15.09%
KENDRICK SNEED
254
9.44%
Write-In
5
0.19%
TOTAL
2,691
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 7 (Republican)
Write-In
17
100.00%
TOTAL
17
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 7 (Democratic)
MELVIN BURGESS
3,206
83.55%
BRANDON ECHOLS
616
16.05%
Write-In
15
0.39%
TOTAL
3,837
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 8 (Republican)
JULIE D. RAY
185
98.40%
Write-In
3
1.60%
TOTAL
188
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 8 (Democratic)
WALTER BAILEY
2,115
77.25%
BERLIN F. BOYD
424
15.49%
DAVID W. VINCIARELLI
190
6.94%
Write-In
9
0.33%
TOTAL
2,738
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 9 (Republican)
Write-In
8
100.00%
TOTAL
8
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 9 (Democratic)
JUSTIN FORD
2,743
38.18%
PATRICE J. ROBINSON
2,215
30.83%
KEITH O. WILLIAMS
2,217
30.86%
Write-In
10
0.14%
TOTAL
7,185
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 10 (Republican)
GEOFF DIAZ
276
99.64%
Write-In
1
0.36%
TOTAL
277
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 10 (Democratic)
JAKE BROWN
731
14.71%
MARTAVIUS D. JONES
2,098
42.22%
REGINALD MILTON
2,124
42.75%
Write-In
16
0.32%
TOTAL
4,969
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 11 (Republican)
Write-In
9
100.00%
TOTAL
9
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 11 (Democratic)
CURTIS BYRD
191
5.90%
DONNELL COBBINS
489
15.12%
EDDIE JONES
1,148
35.49%
HENDRELL REMUS
667
20.62%
CLAUDE TALFORD
731
22.60%
Write-In
9
0.28%
TOTAL
3,235
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 12 (Republican)
Write-In
8
100.00%
TOTAL
8
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 12 (Democatic)
BRYANT K. BOONE
1,207
32.18%
VAN TURNER
2,530
67.45%
Write-In
14
0.37%
TOTAL
3,751
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 13 (Republican)
STEVE BASAR
1,690
99.12%
Write-In
15
0.88%
TOTAL
1,705
100.00%
COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 13 (Democratic)
M. JAIN
1,465
98.26%
Write-In
26
1.74%
TOTAL
1,491
100.00%
ASSESSOR OF PROPERTY (Republican)
KEITH ALEXANDER
10,342
70.67%
MARY PETERS ROYKO
4,248
29.03%
Write-In
45
0.31%
TOTAL
14,635
100.00%
ASSESSOR OF PROPERTY (Democratic)
LORIE INGRAM
10,723
29.37%
CHEYENNE JOHNSON
25,746
70.51%
Write-In
46
0.13%
TOTAL
36,515
100.00%
COUNTY TRUSTEE (Republican)
JEFF JACOBS
2,316
14.71%
DAVID LENOIR
13,403
85.15%
Write-In
21
0.13%
TOTAL
15,740
100.00%
COUNTY TRUSTEE (Democratic)
DERRICK BENNETT
16,980
54.00%
M. LATROY WILLIAMS
14,305
45.50%
Write-In
158
0.50%
TOTAL
31,443
100.00%
SHERIFF (Republican)
BILL OLDHAM
16,545
99.85%
Write-In
25
0.15%
TOTAL
16,570
100.00%
SHERIFF (D) (219 of 219 Precincts Reporting) … (100.00%)
BENNIE COBB
28,173
98.94%
Write-In
303
1.06%
TOTAL
28,476
100.00%
CIRCUIT COURT CLERK (Republican)
MICHAEL FINNEY
4,635
30.25%
JIMMY MOORE
10,668
69.63%
Write-In
18
0.12%
TOTAL
15,321
100.00%
CIRCUIT COURT CLERK (Democratic)
RHONDA BANKS
22,216
71.37%
DEL GILL
8,782
28.21%
Write-In
129
0.41%
TOTAL
31,127
100.00%
CRIMINAL COURT CLERK (Republican)
RICHARD DeSAUSSURE
14,263
99.64%
Write-In
52
0.36%
TOTAL
14,315
100.00%
CRIMINAL COURT CLERK (Democratic)
WANDA HALBERT
17,673
47.12%
THOMAS LONG
12,250
32.66%
MICHAEL R. McCUSKER
2,239
5.97%
RALPH WHITE
5,303
14.14%
Write-In
44
0.12%
TOTAL
37,509
100.00%
JUVENILE COURT CLERK (Republican)
JOY TOULIATOS
15,165
99.84%
Write-In
24
0.16%
TOTAL
15,189
100.00%
JUVENILE COURT CLERK (Democratic)
HENRI E. BROOKS
25,779
70.33%
KEN MOODY
10,787
29.43%
Write-In
88
0.24%
TOTAL
36,654
100.00%
PROBATE COURT CLERK (Republican)
PAUL BOYD
15,002
99.75%
Write-In
38
0.25%
TOTAL
15,040
100.00%
PROBATE COURT CLERK (Democratic)
REGINA BEALE
6,238
18.27%
JENNINGS BERNARD
4,186
12.26%
WILLIAM CHISM, JR.
8,052
23.59%
DARNELL GATEWOOD
3,178
9.31%
CYNTHIA A. GENTRY
4,101
12.01%
AARON HALL
3,693
10.82%
HEIDI KUHN
4,597
13.47%
Write-In
90
0.26%
TOTAL
34,135
100.00%
COUNTY CLERK (Republican)
WAYNE MASHBURN
15,898
99.84%
Write-In
26
0.16%
TOTAL
15,924
100.00%
COUNTY CLERK (Democratic)
CHARLOTTE B. DRAPER
11,763
35.87%
JOHN H. FREEMAN
9,799
29.89%
YOLANDA R. KIGHT
11,134
33.96%
Write-In
93
0.28%
TOTAL
32,789
100.00%
REGISTER OF DEEDS (Republican)
TOM LEATHERWOOD
16,460
99.87%
Write-In
22
0.13%
TOTAL
16,482
100.00%
REGISTER OF DEEDS (Democratic)
STEPHEN CHRISTIAN
13,970
45.39%
COLEMAN THOMPSON
16,673
54.17%
Write-In
138
0.45%
TOTAL
30,781
100.00%
