August 3 Election roundup
Early voting has started and runs through July 29. Election Day is August 3.
There will be a runoff for Mayor, Council At-Large, and some District Council races. The runoff election will be on September 14 with early voting in the weeks before then. Everyone should plan on voting in both elections.
Here’s who I am supporting and then a few thoughts about the Mayor’s race.
Mayor: Freddie O’Connell. Reasons here.
Vice Mayor: Angie Henderson
Council At-Large: You can vote for up to five candidates. My top 4 picks are Quin Segall Evans, Delishia Porterfield, Arnold Hayes, and Zulfat Suara. For the last pick, I encourage you to research the candidates and choose among Olivia Hill, Chris Crofton, Marcia Masulla, Chris Cheng, Burkley Allen, Jeff Syracuse, and Russ Pulley.
For the district council races, I am going to skip the races where it is not competitive, or I like more than one candidate, or nobody has reached out to me to talk, or I am waiting until the runoff to see who’s left. That leaves these races:
District 9: Stephanie Montenegro
District 10: Zach Young
District 11: Eric Patton
District 14: Jordan Huffman
District 19: Jacob Kupin
District 25: Jeff Preptit
District 28: Travis London
My take on the Mayor’s race (today)
The biggest recent news is that Jim Gingrich suspended his campaign a few days ago. My sense is that Gingrich had support from both the right and the left. Where will his voters go?
The first answer is that everyone should have their eye more on the undecided voters than the Gingrich votes. The consensus view among people who have seen polling data is that the undecideds are still 15-30% of the voters. That’s where the most action is from now until election day.
A second answer might involve exploring where Republican voters are in this race. Among Gingrich’s Democratic voters, the consensus I’ve heard is that Freddie O’Connell picks them up because he and Gingrich have been aligned during the campaign in opposition to stadium funding deals. I don’t know if it’s quite as simple as that, but that’s the only theory I’m hearing.
For Gingrich’s Republican supporters, do they go to O’Connell anyway due to the stadium issue? Or do they go to Matt Wiltshire or Alice Rolli?
My sense is that the majority of Republican voters are looking at either Wiltshire or Rolli now that Gingrich has suspended his campaign. MAGA folks don’t have a lot of choices in the race. Rolli is a Republican. Her background suggests she’s not a MAGA Republican, but her campaign messaging drifts that way sometimes. For Wiltshire, he’s clearly aiming to collect as many moderate/business Republicans as possible in this race.
One of the most frequent insider conversations I’ve heard through this campaign is about whether Wiltshire is running more right than he really is, or if he really is aligned with the moderate Republican voters he’s courting. The consensus I’ve heard so far is “nah, he’s just running right…he’ll swing back later…” I don’t have an opinion other than to acknowledge the conversations I’ve heard based on how he’s running the race.
It will be interesting to see the post-election data to see where the breaking line is between Republicans who prefer to vote for a Republican (Rolli) versus those willing to vote for a Democrat who’s campaigning to attract Republicans (Wiltshire).
For O’Connell, who I am supporting, I think he needs to keep running his race. He’s made notorious downtown bar owner Steve Smith unhappy. Smith is running negative ads against Freddie. For most of us in Nashville, making Steve Smith mad is a valuable endorsement. Freddie’s expertise and focus on transit and neighborhoods continue to draw voters from across the spectrum.
For the State Senators, I’ll just say that, for the large number of us who have supported both over the years, there’s a lot of head scratching about why they both got in the race. There’s plenty of theories on that, which you can get from others.
For all of the candidates, I appreciate their willingness to run. Running for an office like this invites sharp scrutiny about the similarities and differences among the candidates. The fun part is getting out in the county and talking to awesome Nashvillians everywhere. But the compare-and-contrast aspect can be painful at times. I appreciate their willingness to tolerate and, in some cases, embrace that.
Please go vote. Check the campaign web sites and stop by one of their events. I recommend that you choose someone who you think is being their authentic self and telling the truth on the campaign trail.