This week on the Memphis Flyer Podcast, political columnist Jackson Baker and Chris McCoy talk about the election and try to come to grips with what just happened. Check it out on YouTube.
Tag: Election
November is the Rodney Dangerfield of months. It gets no respect, no love, except maybe a few laughs. There are no great songs about November, and poems about the 11th month always seem to be dreary things — odes to cold wind, fallen leaves, gray skies, death, etc. Sure, there’s a big holiday near the end of the month, but no one would really care if it got moved to September.
November is a transitional month, a boring layover in our annual trip around the sun, coming as it does just after October’s crisp blue skies and glorious autumnal foliage, and just before the crushing avalanche of December’s major holidays. November is meh. Six hours at the Omaha airport.
I decided to see if I could find anything good written about November because I’m a nerd at heart and that’s the way I roll. I went to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and found November getting kicked around like a rented mule by various literary lights through the centuries, from D.H. Lawrence to Thomas Hood to Sir Walter Scott, who wrote:
November’s sky is chill and drear,
November’s leaf is red and sear …
See what I mean? And in 1562, Richard Grafton (you remember ol’ Richard, don’t you?) penned these immortal words:
Thirty days hath November …
Now there’s a man who went out on a limb, poetically speaking. The best thing he could find to write about November was that it had 30 days! Sadly, a few years after his death, the poem was amended to the more familiar “Thirty days hath September …” And now they’ve got all those sexy months — September, April, May — up there at the top of that piece of doggerel. Like I said, November gets no respect.
Except for in presidential election years, when the word “November” is bandied about for months, as both a beacon of hope and a harbinger of doom, depending on what poll you last saw or which pundit you most recently read. The column you are reading right now went to press on Tuesday — Election Day — so I have no idea what kind of mood you will be in when you read this. You could be filled with joy and hope for our country or you could be pondering a move to the sunny coast of Portugal.
All of which makes me want to offer you a bit of beauty to use as solace or in celebration. It’s a poem by Molly Peacock called, well, “November.”
Novembers were the months that began with No.
“Oh no.” They died in embers. Above were
V’s of geese in skies lit from these low
Even fires. The fires of fall were
Mirrors for the feelings I felt before
Being. I’m telling you now I feel I
Exist for the first time! Neither the bareness nor
Roughness demoralize — I realize I
See much clearer what leafless branches show.
It’s a zen-like puzzle-box of a poem. You can read it over and let the words slide around and small tricks and secrets reveal themselves. I found it comforting and calming. And I’m wishing as I write this that Molly’s poem — and the events of this long-awaited November Tuesday — bring us all some kind of joy, some sense of peace.
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Sharing the Spotlight
As was surely to be expected, the next-to-last weekend of the climactic 2024 election campaign was filled with feverish activity of various kinds — with early voting into its second week and candidates trying to get as many of their partisans as possible to the polls.
A case in point was a pair of events involving Gloria Johnson, the Knoxville Democrat who is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Johnson, the state representative who gained national attention last year as a member of the “Tennessee Three” proponents of gun-safety legislation, has raised some $7 million for her bid — almost all of it from in-state sources, she contended proudly.
While that is no match for the incumbent’s $17 million or so, it has been enough to buy Johnson a series of concise and well-produced TV spots pinpointing Blackburn’s alleged shortcomings. And it even gives her some of the kind of influence that politicians call coattails.
Johnson was in Shelby County on Saturday, sharing time with two other Democrats, District 83 state House candidate Noah Nordstrom (like Johnson a public schoolteacher) and District 97 House candidate Jesse Huseth.
The first event was a joint rally with Nordstrom and state Democratic chair Hendrell Remus just outside the perimeter of the New Bethel Missionary Baptist early-voting station. Next, Johnson met up with Huseth at High Point Grocery for some joint canvassing efforts, after which Huseth, who opposes GOP incumbent John Gillespie, set out on some door-to-door calls on residents in that western part of his district.
The most unusual pre-election event on Saturday didn’t involve Johnson, nor was it, in the strictest sense, a partisan event at all. It was a meet-and-greet at the Belly Acres restaurant in East Memphis involving both Nordstrom and his GOP adversary, incumbent Republican state Representative Mark White.
Not a debate between the two, mind you. A joint meet-and-greet, at which both candidates circulated among the members of a sizeable crowd, spending conversational time with the attendees and with each other.
The event was the brainchild of one Philip D. Hicks, impresario of something called the Independent Foundation for Political Effectiveness. Hicks says he hopes the Nordstrom-White encounter, his organization’s maiden effort, can serve as a precedent for other such joint candidate efforts to come — presumably in future election seasons.
Inasmuch as political competition is, by its nature, an adversarial process, it’s somewhat difficult to imagine such events becoming commonplace, but, all things considered, this first one went amazingly well.
It wasn’t the same kind of thing at all, but there were elements of such collegiality between potential election opponents at an earlier event, a meeting of the Germantown Democratic Club at Coletta’s on Appling Road during the previous week.
That event included Memphis City Council Chair JB Smiley as its featured speaker, and Smiley, who is reliably reported to be thinking of a race for Shelby County mayor in 2026, spent a fair amount of time comparing notes on public matters (e.g., MLGW, the future of the erstwhile Sheraton Hotel) with attendee J.W. Gibson, a businessman who has basically already declared for that office.
Take heed, Mr/Hicks.
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Election 2024: Party Time
The Flyer recently highlighted several referenda for Memphis voters on the November 5th election ballot. This week, which will see the onset of early voting (October 16th through October 31st), we look at partisan contests in several key races.
Legislative Races
Noah Nordstrom, tall, stately, with long blonde hair he ties into a bun, says people tell him he looks like Trevor Lawrence, the ex-Clemson quarterback who now pilots the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL. “Either that or Thor,” Nordstrom says. “I’ll take either one.”
Images aside, Nordstrom is paradoxically mild-mannered and not macho at all, indeed somewhat diffident, as befits his day job as a public school teacher.
What else he hopes to take is the title of state representative for Tennessee’s District 83, an enclave that straddles the southeastern rim of Shelby County and the western edge of Germantown. Challenger Nordstrom, a Democrat, has his work cut out for him. The seat has been held since 2010 by Republican Mark White, a fixture in the state GOP’s legislative supermajority in Nashville and the chair of the House Education Committee.
Education, as it happens, is also the central concern of Nordstrom, who teaches Spanish at Overton High School and is sounding the alarm about what he calls the “radical” ideas of the current legislative Republican supermajority. The specific moment that galvanized him into running came, he says, “when I realized that my state representative, Mark White, is pushing the voucher bill.”
That bill, a main priority of GOP Governor Bill Lee, is described by Nordstrom as “a proposal that would defund our public schools across the entire state of Tennessee.” A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but the premise of the proposed legislation is that substantial amounts of taxpayer money would be siphoned out of the general fund to provide tuition at private schools, which, arguably, are in direct competition with the long-established public school system.
“I live just over on the Memphis side [where] Memphis has set up against it completely,” said Nordstrom. Also, as he notes, “The leaders here in Germantown, the entire school board, and the mayor stood up and said, you know, we don’t want this. … Even the Republican-leaning communities don’t want it. And so I decided to throw my name in.”
Indeed, opposition to school vouchers is universal in Shelby County school circles, not only in the urbanized Memphis-Shelby County Schools, but in each of the six county municipalities — Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Lakeland, Arlington, and Millington — that won the right to establish their own public school districts during the school merger controversy of the county’s previous decade.
Opposition to vouchers is one of the key wedge issues, along with demands for gun safety, also linked to public schools, that Democrats — presumed to be a minority in District 83, as they certainly are in the state at large — hope can support a political comeback for the party.
“We can do better for our kids, and so that’s been one of the main issues,” Nordstrom said at the Future901-sponsored meeting, held in a Germantown household, where he recently spoke his views. “Obviously one of the other major ones is gun violence. It’s overwhelming to realize that you might not be able to save some of these kids. We see it every day, wondering whether they’re going to make it home safe.”
Unforgotten is the “good trouble” of spring 2023, when mass protests were held at the state Capitol following a lethal episode of gun violence at a Nashville school. In the aftermath, three Democratic House members, including Justin J. Pearson of Memphis and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, a candidate this year for the U.S. Senate, were held to accounts by the Republican majority for their passionate support of protesters’ demands for gun safety legislation.
Pearson was expelled by the vengeful majority, along with Justin Jones of Nashville, the third member of the “Tennessee Three.” Johnson survived expulsion by a single vote. All three were celebrated nationally for their stands, and Pearson and Jones were hastily returned to office in special elections.
Realistically, Democrats don’t envision any immediate regaining of the hegemony the party held for much of Tennessee’s history, but they do hope to achieve at some point a competitive status with the Republicans, who established their dominance in the statewide election years of 2010 and 2014 and have never looked back.
At the Future901 meeting in Germantown, there was a fair amount of partisan bear-baiting of Republicans, to be sure, but there were also expressions of concern regarding the increasing takeover of the GOP by MAGA ideology and a corresponding erosion, as attendees saw it, of commonsense shared values among Republican office-holders.
White, Nordstrom’s opponent, and state Representative John Gillespie, the incumbent Republican in House District 97, were specifically cited as case studies of GOP moderates shedding their scruples, or at least trimming them at the edges, while going along to get along with the MAGA-minded majority.
As Nordstrom noted, “Now the gun lobby is so strong they say, ‘Don’t vote our way and we’ll find a candidate for the primary, and we’ll pick you out.’ And that’s part of the reason why Mark White has gotten so much more radical. You know, at one point he opposed getting rid of the permitting system for concealed carry. And last year, he voted to arm teachers, and that’s because he knows they” — members supported by the gun lobby — “are comfortable.”
Democratic activist Diane Cambron, an attendee, concurred: “That’s one of the reasons why [District 96 Democratic state Representative] Dwayne Thompson is not running for reelection. He didn’t run for reelection this time because, according to him, when he first got elected in 2016 there were some moderate Republicans with whom he could work, but every year, those moderate Republicans drop out, they don’t run, and they’re replaced by younger, more radical Republicans, and that is what our Republican legislature is becoming. Even though they have a majority, they’re getting more and more radical all the time. There are very few moderate Republicans left.”
It should be said that White, the criticism notwithstanding, is widely regarded as being able to work across party lines. And, as the old joke has it, White can cry all the way to the bank. As is the case with most incumbents, especially well-heeled establishment figures, his cash receipts dwarf those of opponent Nordstrom, a first-time candidate.
His Education Committee chairmanship is consistent with his background in that, before attaining some success with a party-favor business, he was an elementary school teacher and a principal. He co-founded something called the Global Children’s Educational Foundation, which provided financial assistance and educational opportunities to impoverished children in Panama. And he won the Tennessee Community Organizations’ Legislator of the Year award in 2016 and the Tennessee CASA Association’s Legislator of the Year award in 2012.
He is no slouch, no easy target.
All of which is to say that Noah Nordstrom and the Democrats will have their hands full in District 83. They remain hopeful, though, that they can build on the incremental success they began in 2016 — ironically the year of Donald J. Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton nationally. The victory in 2016 of the aforementioned Dwayne Thompson over incumbent Republican Steve McManus in District 96 was just as much of an upset locally. As then constituted, District 96 also straddled city and county lines and the accustomed bailiwicks of either party.
So does House District 97, where the case can be made that Democratic challenger Jesse Huseth might even be regarded as a favorite over incumbent Republican John Gillespie. The two opponents have raised approximately the same amount of money, each with cash on hand of just under $100,000, and, as currently configured, the district lines encompass a territory where Democrat Jason Martin, a distant second to incumbent GOP Governor Bill Lee virtually everywhere statewide, actually out-polled Lee. And the same can be said of Joe Biden in his presidential race against Trump.
The district’s current configuration remains one of the mysteries of Election Year 2024, since Gillespie, as a member of the GOP supermajority, had the opportunity to call the shots during the redistricting that followed census year 2020. And he decided to discard two Republican-dominated county precincts in return for two politically ambivalent ones further west in Memphis proper, presumably lowering his chances for reelection.
There has yet emerged no satisfactory explanation for Gillespie’s decision. One theory is that, as someone not regarded as slavishly partisan, he fretted over the prospect of being challenged in this year’s primary by a MAGA type in the formerly configured district. Another is that he was determined to prove that he could still win the more problematic district as a presumed Republican moderate — one who conspicuously deviated from GOP orthodoxy on the issue of guns, among other issues. Yet a third theory is that Gillespie simply wishes to represent the concerns of Memphis’ Poplar Corridor business community.
In any case, the District 97 race is regarded statewide as something of a coin-flip race — a test case of sorts regarding future partisan tendencies and the Democrats’ best chance of altering the current statistical ratio in the House, which stands at 75 Republicans and 24 Democrats.
The race could hinge on the two candidates’ contrasting positions on crime, which reflect an ongoing showdown between state and city. Huseth is a strong supporter of three referenda on the Memphis ballot that seek citizen support for “trigger” laws that would allow possible local reinstitution of gun permit requirements, the banning of assault rifle sales, and the imposition of “red flag” laws allowing judges to confiscate firearms from likely offenders. The Democratic candidate is an adherent as well of District Attorney General Steve Mulroy’s call for a new Memphis crime lab that would facilitate detection and prosecution of violent crime.
Gillespie has allied himself with state Senator Brent Taylor, a declared foe of Mulroy, in aggressive sponsorship of legislation strengthening anti-crime penalties and counteracting local options on matters of sentencing. Gillespie authored a bill striking down the Memphis City Council’s ban of “preemptive” traffic stops based on minor infractions.
Partisan races exist in several other legislative districts, where the incumbents are heavily favored. The contests are: Democratic incumbent Larry Miller vs. Republican Larry Hunter in House District 88; Democratic incumbent G.A. Hardaway vs. Republican Renarda Renee Clariett in District 93; Democratic incumbent Antonio Parkinson vs. the GOP’s Cecil Hale in District 98; and Republican incumbent Tom Leatherwood vs. Democrat William P. Mouzon in District 99.
U.S. Senate
Democrats have not come out ahead in a statewide race in Tennessee since then-Governor Phil Bredesen fairly handily won reelection in 2006. By the time Bredesen was next on the ballot, in a race for the U.S. Senate in 2018, he was defeated with equal ease by arch-conservative Republican state Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Nothing more clearly indicates the sea change in Tennessee partisan politics which occurred in the meantime, with the rapid shift of Tennessee from the status of a bellwether state to one in which Republican domination of state affairs had become a given.
Blackburn is up for reelection this year, and Democratic hopes are vested in the aforementioned Gloria Johnson, who won prominence as a member of the “Tennessee Three,” the Democratic House members who drew the ire of the Republican leadership for their assertive support of gun safety protesters in 2023.
Both Blackburn and Johnson have well-deserved reputations for intense partisanship, with Blackburn being a mainline supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, of strong action against illegal immigration, and of MAGA causes in general, and Johnson being equally vigorous in espousal of Democratic positions on such matters as reproductive freedom and climate change. She has clashed repeatedly with Republicans in the legislature and, after being gerrymandered out of one state House seat by the GOP supermajority, returned to the General Assembly as the representative of another.
Efforts by Democrats and others to arrange debates between the two candidates have so far foundered on a confident and financially well-endowed Blackburn’s reluctance to entertain them, but various polls have suggested that underdog Johnson, beneficiary of a recent fundraiser at the Annesdale Mansion in Memphis, may be within striking distance.
Congressional Races
Incumbent Democrat Steve Cohen is heavily favored against Charlotte Bergmann, a perennial Republican opponent of his in the Memphis-based 9th District, while Republican incumbent David Kustoff in the 8th District has a scrappy challenger in Sarah Freeman of Germantown, who hopes to revive a dormant Democratic base in the rural enclaves of that West Tennessee district.
The effect of the 2024 presidential race on any and all of these local races is somewhat harder than usual to estimate. Normally a heavy Democratic turnout in Memphis precincts for the presidential race inflates the totals of Democrats running in local districts. And that effect could be augmented by a larger turnout than usual among women voters who favor the Democratic position on behalf of abortion rights and who might be influenced by the fact of a woman, Kamala Harris, heading the Democratic ticket. But local Republican candidates, too, can expect a boost, from whatever turnout the Trump/MAGA base can command.
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August 1st Races of Note
The historic congressional district of Memphis, currently and for many years designated as Tennessee’s 9th, has generally been one of long incumbencies.
The seat’s current inhabitant Steve Cohen, a Democrat and a longtime member of the state Senate, won it in 2006, after Harold Ford Jr., who had succeeded his father in the seat, had let go of it to seek an open U.S. Senate seat.
The two Fords, both Democrats, had served the 9th for a total of 32 years, beginning in 1974 when Ford Sr. pried it loose in what was then regarded as an upset, from Dan Kuykendall, the only Republican ever to hold the seat, at least in modern times.
Kuykendall had won the seat in 1966, defeating liberal Democrat George Grider, who in 1964 had won a Democratic primary race against Cliff Davis, a longtime member of the old Crump political machine who had held the Memphis seat for a full quarter century.
From an historical perspective, the relatively brief Grider/Kuykendall period, during which Republicans had, both locally and statewide, enjoyed a resurgence, was the only real time of rapid flux in the district’s — which is to say, the city’s — voting habits.
Before then, Memphis and the 9th had voted the traditional Southern Democratic party line. And, after that, with the Fords’ advent, that line bore the imprimatur of the growing political dominance of African Americans.
Cohen, white and Jewish, won the seat in 2006, taking advantage of a split among a dozen-odd Black primary opponents, and he has held it ever since — successfully taking on a series of name Black primary opponents and defeating them all, one-on-one, usually with ease.
He would seem clearly on that record to have represented his majority-Black district faithfully.
Cohen’s main current primary challenger is no slouch. Lawyer Corey Strong is a former Democratic Party chair with a background in education and military affairs (U.S. Naval Academy, two tours of Afghanistan).
Faced with Cohen’s enduring popularity and his million-dollar war chest, Strong has done the best he can, chiding Cohen for his often antic behavior and claiming the incumbent has not helped to keep the city’s infrastructure current (despite an impressive record of securing grants and Cohen’s recent announcement of $400 million for a new I-55 bridge).
Other races of note on the August 1st ballot:
• A free-for-all in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, with Knoxville state Rep. Gloria Johnson (she of the “Tennessee Three”) vying with Memphian Marquita Bradshaw and others for the right to take on Republican incumbent Marsha Blackburn in November
• Another brisk competition in the Democratic 8th District congressional primary, with Sarah Freeman, Leonard Perkins, Lawrence A. Pivnick, Lynnette P. Williams, and Brenda Woods, competing for a November shot against GOP incumbent David Kustoff
• A Democratic primary challenge to District 30 state Senator Sara Kyle from Erika Stotts Pearson
• A primary challenge to District 84 Democratic state Rep. Joe Towns from Vernell Williams
• A primary challenge to District 86 state Rep. Justin J. Pearson (he of the “Tennessee Three”) by David Page
• A Democratic primary challenge to District 93 state Rep. G.A. Hardaway from Lashanta Rudd
• A hot race in the Democratic primary for the open District 96 state House seat involving contestants Eric Dunn, Telisa Franklin, Gabby Salinas, Orrden Williams, and David Winston
• A Republican Party challenge to District 97 state Rep. John Gillespie from Christina Oppenhuizen
• A general election race for General Sessions Court clerk between Democrat Tami Sawyer and Republican Lisa Arnold
Along with other offices to be decided this year, five of the nine seats on the Memphis-Shelby County School Board are on the August ballot. Candidates are:
• District 2: Ernest Gillespie III, Althea Greene (incumbent), and Natalie McKinney
• District 3: Jesse Jeff, Stephanie Love (incumbent), Ozell Pace Jr., and Angela Rogers
• District 4: James Q. Bacchus, Alvin Crook, Eric Harris, Tamarques Porter, and Anecia Washington
• District 5: Mauricio Calvo (incumbent), Audrey Elion, and Sable Otey
• District 7: Chavez G. Donelson, Danielle Huggins, Frank William Johnson (incumbent), Towanna C. Murphy, and Jason Sharif
Saturday of this week will see the end of early voting for the August 1st Shelby County general election and the state and federal primary elections.
As a reminder, Monday through Friday, early voting locations are open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the exception of the Shelby County Election Commission site which is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Weekend times for all sites are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 27th.
Early voting sites (in Memphis except where otherwise indicated) are:
• Abundant Grace Fellowship Church, 1574 E. Shelby Drive
• Anointed Temple of Praise, 3939 Riverdale Road
• Arlington Safe Room, 11842 Otto Lane, Arlington
• Baker Community Center, 7942 Church Road, Millington
• Briarwood Community Church, 1900 N. Germantown Parkway
• Collierville Church of Christ, 575 Shelton Drive, Collierville
• Compassion Church, 3505 S. Houston Levee Road
• Dave Wells Community Center, 915 Chelsea Avenue
• Ed Rice Community Center, 2935 N. Watkins Street
• Gaisman Community Center, 4223 Macon Road
• Glenview Community Center, 1141 S. Barksdale Street
• Greater Lewis St. Baptist Church, 152 E. Parkway N.
• Greater Middle Baptist Church, 4982 Knight Arnold Road
• Harmony Church, 6740 St. Elmo Road, Bartlett
• I.H. Clubhouse, 4523 Canada Road, Lakeland
• Mississippi Boulevard Church Family Life Center, 70 N. Bellevue Boulevard
• Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church, 1234 Pisgah Road
• Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 60 S. Parkway E.
• New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, 7786 Poplar Pike, Germantown
• Raleigh United Methodist Church, 3295 Powers Road
• Riverside Missionary Baptist Church, 3560 S. Third Street
• Second Baptist Church, 4680 Walnut Grove Road
• Shelby County Election Commission, James Meredith Building, 157 Poplar Avenue
• Solomon Temple MB Church, 1460 Winchester Road
• TN Shakespeare Company, 7950 Trinity Road, Cordova
• White Station Church of Christ, 1106 Colonial Road
Donald Trump can appear on Tennessee election ballots in November after the Tennessee Attorney General refused to issue an opinion on the matter last week.
Rep. Vincent Dixie (D-Nashville) requested the opinion from Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, earlier this month. Dixie pointed to a Tennessee law that says anyone convicted of an “infamous crime” is “disqualified from qualifying for, seeking election to or holding a public office in this state.”
Dixie said the law is meant “to protect the public from individuals who refuse to adhere to the laws they are meant to uphold.” He then pointed to Trump’s convictions on 34 felony counts of election interference last week.
Skrmetti’s office said it could only render opinions to officials “in the discharge of their official duties.” The letter added emphasis to the words “in the discharge of their official duties” but did not offer further details.
“Your letter also rests on an incorrect premise that (the state law’s) reference to ‘a public office in this state’ somehow includes the U.S. President,” reads the letter from Tennessee solicitor General Matt Rice. “The U.S. Presidency is not a public office in Tennessee. And any State effort to add new qualifications for the U.S. President would raise serious constitutional questions.”
Dixie said he was “disappointed” but “not surprised” by the response from the AG’s office.
“This just highlights the broken criminal justice system in this country,” Dixie said in a statement. “There is no rational explanation for a way that a person can possibly be elected [President of the United States] by this state, and if that same person lived in Tennessee, they wouldn’t even be able to cast a ballot and vote. How does that make sense?”
Dixie’s request came after Trump was convicted in New York last month on 34 felony counts. Trump was convicted of all counts as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star who alleged she had sex with him.
Secretary of State Tre Hargett’s office told Tennessee Lookout earlier this month that Trump will be on Tennessee’s election ballot.
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Election Time Again?
Yep, another election is coming up, and this one, a primary election scheduled for Tuesday, March 5th, involves just two offices — one of them being the presidency of the United States, the other being the clerkship of Shelby County’s General Sessions Court. (Note, early voting has already begun and ends on February 27th.)
Where the presidential primaries are concerned, there is not much suspense. Those voters selecting a Republican ballot will have eight choices, and that old saw about the value of a name being high up on the ballot list can safely be discarded.
Of the eight available GOP alternatives, one Donald J. Trump is last on the list. Those preceding the former president, in alphabetical order, are Ryan Binkley, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, and David Stuckenberg.
Of these, only Haley, a former UN ambassador and the ex-governor of South Carolina, is still an active candidate opposing Trump, and she may be the only person in America or anywhere else who believes she has a ghost of a chance.
(It’s not against the law to believe in ghosts, but it’s certainly against the oddsboard.)
On the Democratic primary ballot, there is only one name — that of the incumbent president, Joe Biden.
Of course, voters who don’t cotton to the idea of a Biden-Trump repeat in the November 5th general election are free to fantasize and write in whomever they please on whichever ballot they choose.
Now, for the General Sessions clerk’s race: The two party candidates selected on March 5th will vie for the position in a general election on Thursday, August 8th. The same date holds for various elections in the county’s suburban municipalities and for primaries for state and federal positions on the November ballot.
Lisa Arnold, a former employee with the clerk’s office, is the only Republican on the March 5th GOP ballot, while Democratic voters have four candidates to choose from.
The Democrats are: Rheunte Benson, who is currently serving as criminal administrator with the clerk’s office and is making her second race for the clerk’s position, having run for it four years ago; Shelandra Ford, who served as Shelby County register of deeds from 2018-22 and was defeated in a reelection bid for that office four years ago by current register Willie Brooks; Joe Brown, the incumbent Criminal Court clerk, who previously served several terms as a member of the city council and who won out in a crowded primary for the clerk’s office four years ago.
And there is Tami Sawyer, the former activiste par excellence, county commissioner, and 2019 candidate for mayor. This is not the same Tami Sawyer who could “not wait” to seek the city’s highest office in what seems, in retrospect, to have been a premature move.
This is a new Sawyer, inclusive rather than confrontational, a solid organizer, and backed by an impressive chorus of Establishment Democrats while maintaining her woke base.
Her main obstacle to election might be the ritual name-ID advantages of opponents Ford (not a member of the well-known political clan but possessor of the same surname) and Brown (whose election in the first place was probably due to voters’ familiarity with his TV-judge namesake).
Sawyer is, in any case, widely regarded as the favorite, and she is expected, if elected, to use the new perch not as a sinecure but as the springboard for further political action.
Downtown Memphis Commission leader Paul Young will be Memphis’ next mayor, a position that gives him no formal authority over Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS), but could allow him to revive the relationship between city and district if he follows through on his campaign plans.
Such a change would come at a pivotal time, bringing additional dollars to the district as it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance projects and seeks to develop a facility plan that better supports academic improvement.
“We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that,” Young told Chalkbeat in September.
Those funds would support capital investments and upgrades to MSCS buildings, Young said, a proposal that aligns with the interests of the MSCS school board and interim Superintendent Toni Williams. A 14-person committee of government officials and nonprofit sector leaders is set to convene later this fall to develop the new facilities plan.
Young will take office on January 1st. The success of his plans would depend on support from the Memphis City Council, whose makeup will be settled after runoff elections in November. And the MSCS school board will need to carry the torch for the district’s infrastructure plans through the expected leadership transition this spring, when Williams’ tenure ends and a permanent superintendent takes over.
Young’s proposals distinguished him from several other frontrunners in the race, which he won with 28 percent of the vote Thursday, according to unofficial results from the Shelby County Election Commission. (There are no runoffs in Memphis mayoral elections.)
Others who got more than 20 percent of the vote include Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner (23 percent), former Memphis Mayor and school Superintendent Willie Herenton (22 percent), and attorney and former Shelby County Commission Chair Van Turner (21 percent).
Among them, only Turner proposed that the city fund MSCS through annual appropriations, the same way the county currently does.
Candidate Michelle McKissack, a current MSCS board member, received less than 2 percent of the vote.
Chalkbeat posed questions to all the candidates about their positions on education, and published the responses it received in a mayoral voter guide.
Here are the responses Young submitted on September 1st:
I am committed to providing a strong foundation for our youth through quality education and investing in youth development. This means equitable access to resources, teacher support, and innovative learning environments that empower every student to succeed. I believe in engaging directly with educators, parents, and community members to collaborate on and champion effective policies that address the unique challenges our students and young people face.
My mayoral administration will draw insights from a diverse range of stakeholders including educators, students, parents, and community advocates. Through open dialogue and collaboration, we will craft informed policies to continue to do better by our young people. Progress will be measured through data-driven indicators such as improved graduation rates, literacy and test scores, and increased community engagement. Transparency and accountability will guide us toward achieving our educational goals.
Many Memphis students and families confront barriers like poverty, gun violence, and over-policing that hinder learning. By offering comprehensive support services such as mental health programs, after-school initiatives, and community-centered efforts, we will create safer environments where learning can thrive. Collaborating with local organizations and promoting restorative justice practices will contribute to holistic development and improved educational outcomes for our youth.
I believe that the city can support MSCS through capital investments, and also through improving and upgrading facilities’ infrastructure. The city can also support through after school enrichment and extracurricular programs. We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that.
We would continue to support early childhood efforts and seek to grow the number of spaces available for young people in our community. Our efforts would be informed by MSCS and our partners.
I think that MSCS should have a strong collaborative working relationship on the types of programming that is taught to children in our community. The city should support investment in facilities, infrastructure, and extracurricular activities. The relationship between the mayor and the superintendent should be a strong partnership where they advocate for Memphis children together at every level.
A high quality school is one where there are various approaches to educating children where they are. We must meet the individual needs of children while not holding them back. This work must take place in and out of the classroom, and schools can and should offer holistic services to help support the whole child and their unique needs. Crosstown High, East High School, White Station are a few schools that come to mind.
I went to East High School — Ms. Foster was my geometry teacher there and she made the subject matter fun and interesting to me. She pushed me further than I thought I could go. As far as leadership, she showed me we can always be better, we can always do more. I learned from her that intellectual curiosity can make work seem like fun, and I try to bring that spirit to everyone on the team with me.
Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
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.
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.
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Politics and the Marketplace
Last Tuesday’s elections are determining the composition of the U.S. House of Representatives, a third of the Senate (runoffs aside), and 36 governorships. Politically, this feels like a divisive time, and accusations and dire warnings from both sides of the aisle are getting increasingly hyperbolic. How can we confidently invest or stay invested in markets at a time like this?
There was never a time where politics didn’t feel at least a little divisive in America. Recent events have us on high alert, but there are a lot of stories in the history books equally as shocking. In 1856, a Senator was beaten with a cane until he fell unconscious on the floor of the Senate. A few years later, there was an all-out brawl in the House, including more than 30 members. Even as recently as 1988, a Senator was arrested and carried onto the floor feet-first by the Sergeant-at-Arms to comply with quorum rules. The rise of aggressive algorithms on social media probably does contribute to political divisiveness today, and we don’t mean to minimize the recent events and violence in our political process. However, there has never been a period of time where politics have felt completely constructive and settled.
There has never been a period of forward-looking geopolitical security either. Throughout the Cold War and even today, we have the omnipresent threat of nuclear conflict. Events like the Bay of Pigs invasion are largely forgotten today because they were resolved, but there was no guarantee at the time that things would work out at all. All recorded history has been defined by the rise and fall of great powers, and these tectonic shifts in influence and control continue as countries like Russia try to stay relevant and countries like China aspire to become more dominant throughout the world.
We’re not going to solve the world’s problems today, but we can reassure you that despite all the uncertainty in the past, the markets have persevered — through world wars, inflation, recessions, and everything else that happened in the twentieth century. Every time concerning news comes out, people wonder if “this time is different.” Each time is different in its own way, but thus far the world, the economy, and the financial markets have always persevered in the long run.
The good news is that there is no evidence suggesting the political party in power reliably has any influence over the future trajectory of the markets. The conventional wisdom is that populist candidates are negative for the markets and more conservative candidates are market-positive. We think it’s more likely that different ideologies benefit different types of companies (for example, a Democratic sweep might be positive for green-energy companies while Republicans might be good for coal). Also, there are elaborate checks and balances through the legislative process and via the judiciary, so even with a large majority, one party can’t have overly dominant influence.
One theme we always come back to is diversification. At Telarray, we don’t have to spend any time worrying about which stock or sector might outperform based on a particular election outcome because we are broadly diversified across countries, currencies, and investment factors. Our style of investing has exposure to virtually every sector and countless companies throughout the world. Concentrated investing can pay great rewards, but it can also result in great disappointment if things don’t work out the right way. Harry Markowitz’s statement that “diversification is the only free lunch” rings truer today than ever.
Gene Gard is Chief Investment Officer at Telarray, a Memphis-based wealth management firm that helps families navigate investment, tax, estate, and retirement decisions. Ask him your questions or schedule an objective, no-pressure portfolio review at letstalk@telarrayadvisors.com. Sign up for their next free online seminar on the Events tab at telarrayadvisors.com.