It won’t even be possible to pick up a petition from the Election Commission until December, but by now, most of the long-rumored hopefuls for Shelby County mayor in 2026 have taken some concrete steps indicating their candidacy — by appointment of a campaign treasurer, organization of fundraisers/meet-and-greets, or via social media, campaign signs, or ads in play.
Those considered active or about to be, all Democrats at this point, include Memphis City Councilman JB Smiley, Shelby County Commissioner Mickell Lowery, County CAO Harold Collins, County Assessor Melvin Burgess, and businessman/philanthropist J.W. Gibson.
Still keeping her powder dry but regarded as certain to be a candidate is Criminal Court Clerk Heidi Kuhn, also a Democrat.
No mainstream Republican has been heard from so far, but the Reverend Gerald Kiner, not well-known heretofore in party affairs (or elsewhere, for that matter), has indicated he will likely run for the office. Kiner, who heads the nonprofit Daughters of Zion, has taken no formal steps as of yet.
Shelby County’s Republicans enjoyed a brief period of political dominance in the county from 1992, when they ushered in the era of partisan primaries for county office, to 2018, when a Democratic sweep of county offices — the so-called “blue wave” — indicated that demographic changes had put Democrats back in the saddle.
The GOP took what was probably its best shot at a local political comeback in 2022 when it nominated former councilman, now party chair, Worth Morgan for county mayor. But Morgan finished well behind Democratic incumbent Lee Harris, and the Republicans’ perceived weakness was further demonstrated by the party’s failure to nominate a candidate of its own for sheriff that year.
At this writing, the county Republican Party’s plans for partisan primary races in 2026 remain incomplete, though it should be noted that the party’s executive committee recently voted to hold primaries in local school board races — a step prompted by the General Assembly’s vote this year to put school board races on the same four-year grid as county commission races.
And there remains the prospect of a contested gubernatorial primary on the Republican side. District 6 U.S. Representative John Rose is independently wealthy and already running hard, though a race for governor by GOP U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, long assumed to be a fact, has recently come into some doubt with the revelation that she is apparently soliciting funds for a reelection bid for the Senate, which would not take place until 2030.
And, as was demonstrated in the case of former state Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown — convicted of campaign finance violations and later pardoned by President Trump — funds raised for state races and federal races are not mutually transferable and must be kept separate.
• First-term Councilwoman Jerri Green is receiving kudos from various sources for her diligent — and apparently fruitful — efforts to find funding sources in the 2026 city budget to pay for raises for the police and for city employees at large.
The council approved the raises last week as a climax to talks sparked by the Memphis Police Department’s sense of being overlooked in Mayor Paul Young’s proposed preliminary budget.
