There were few surprises in the major races. All the favorites won or led when the counting was done. Mayor Jim Strickland won reelection, going away, hitting his goal of 60 percent of the vote, with points to spare. Former Mayor Willie Herenton finished far behind in second, and County Commissioner Tami Sawyer was an even more distant third. Vote totals were Strickland: 59,886; Herenton, 27,694; Sawyer, 6,666.
Mayor Strickland receives congratulations by phone from runner-up Herenton at Botanic Gardens, as aide Ken Moody looks on.
Overall, suspense was hard to find in the results — though it existed here and there, notably in the neck-and-neck contest in Super District 9, Position 1, between Chase Carlisle, 23,421, and Erika Sugarmon, 22,890. Carlisle kept a slim lead all night, with Sugarmon edging up but just falling short.
If there was a major surprise, it was in the narrow victory of the half-cent sales tax referendum, destined to replenish the lost benefits of the city’s first responders. The vote was, For 49,676; Against, 44,948.
Other results; Rhonda Logan, the Raleigh CDC president who couldn’t get a Council majority last year to fill a vacancy in this North Memphis district, narrowly missed one Thursday, ending with a strong lead in a multi -candidate race over incumbent and second-place finisher Sherman Greer, who was the pick of the incumbent council members back then. She’ll take that edge into a runoff.Logan, 4,695; Greer, 3,684.
In District 2, Cordova and points east, incumbent Frank Colvett, 8,541, was a 2-1 victor over his closest challenger, Marvin White 5,295.
In District 3, Whitehaven, incumbent Patrice Robinson, 7,723, did even better, winning 3 -1 over Tanya Cooper, 2,634.
In District 4 — Orange Mound, Central Gardens — incumbent Jamita Swearengen, 7,151, was another winner, unexpectedly easily, over Britney Thornton, 3,194.
In District 5, Midtown and East Memphis, challenger John Marek, 7,572, had a last-minute win in court over a pair of pay-for-play sample ballots but lost at the polls to incumbent Worth Morgan, 11,397.
In District 6, South Memphis, riverfront, and Downtown, former seat-holder Edmond Ford Sr., 9,770, triumphed easily, as expected, over a large field, with Davon Clemons, 2,384, who was endorsed by Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, finishing far back in second.
Also as expected, controversial incumbent Berlin Boyd, 2,877, fell far short of a majority in District 7, North Memphis, Frayser, and will face a runoff with Michalyn C.S. Easter, 1,959.
There won’t, however, be a runoff in the tight race for Super District 8, Position 1, where Gerrie Currie, a fill-in incumbent from District 6, chose to yield that race to Ed Ford Sr. and tried instead for this seat, one of the at-large ones where runoffs are not allowed, by judicial decree. Currie, 11,324, was trimmed by lawyer J.B. Smiley, 14,464, who’s been angling upward in politics for a while.
Position 2 in Super District 8, the western or predominantly African-American at-large area, was easily held by incumbent Cheyenne Johnson, 21, 853, over nearest competitor Craig Littles, 7,490. And incumbent Martavius Jones, 19,865, who is used to squeaker elections, ran away from several opponents to hold on to Position 3. Closest competitor was R.S. Ford Sr., 11,340.
As indicated, Erika Sugarmon came close to winner Carlisle but earned no cigar in Position 1 of Super District 9, which is racially fairly closely divided but which, geographically, was originally designed to take in the once predominantly white part of the city.
In the Position 2 race, incumbent Ford Canale, 27,051, was able to win a majority, with challengers Mauricio Calvo, 9,277, and Deanielle Jones, 9,096, in a dead heat for second place.
And Dr. Jeff Warren, 22,467, the former Memphis School Board member who got off to a head start in the Position 3 race both financially and organizationally, won easily over second-place challenger University of Memphis development specialist Cody Fletcher, 13,918.
In the contest for City Court Clerk, it was inevitable that the race would come down to the candidates with most name identification — former councilmen Myron Lowery and Joe Brown. Lowery emerging as the winner — 34,544 to Brown’s 24,548.
There were two contested races for Municipal Court Judge, with incumbent Teresa Jones, 52,691, winning easily over LaTrena Davis-Ingram, 19,703, in Division 1, and Division 3 incumbent Jayne Chandler, 49,217, holding off Magistrate David Pool, 32,127, in Division 3. Incumbent Tarik Sugarmon, 74,177, was unopposed in Division 3.
