- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Paul Young is mayor, City Council runoffs and much more tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I am Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by a couple of journalists to talk about the big election night of last night.

Toby Sells, News Editor, Memphis Flyer.

Thanks for being here again.

- Thank you, sir.

- And Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

Bill, some will notice that you have notes and papers and stats, which is unique, but it was a big election night.

Sometimes elections in Memphis and Shelby County are kind of meh, but last year we had a big election with the district attorney race and the mayor's race as well on the county side, but let's start with the mayor's race.

That was the biggest one.

We'll also go into the city council races, some wins, some runoffs, some just notable changes, but Paul Young is mayor.

- Yes.

First of all, it was a low turnout election.

23.7% of the voters in the city.

88,668 showed up.

This is why I have the notes.

[group chuckling] Ultimately, Paul Young's margin over Floyd Bonner in this 17-candidate field wound up being 4,513 votes.

There was a lot of discussion before this from people who want to change the way that our election system works in city elections, that someone in this pact would be elected with 25,000 votes.

Paul Young wound up with slightly less than 25,000 votes in this particular race.

But what we saw was a really very complex campaign, even given the low turnout among these four top candidates, and some others who didn't do that well, but nevertheless had an impact on the race.

They all came with very different plans.

Not necessarily different views on all issues, but very different plans for what they thought the city should be about, where the city should go and what city government's role is in that.

- Those top four, Toby, those top four were Paul Young, for those who haven't followed, Floyd Bonner at 19, almost 20,000, former Mayor Herenton at 18,900, just 900 votes behind Floyd Bonner, and Van Turner just a couple hundred votes behind Willie Herenton.

Then there's a big drop to JW Gibson at 2,000 votes.

Thoughts, Toby?

- First thought is the voter turnout was abysmally low.

It's disappointing.

We had the entire City Council up for election.

We had the mayor's race up for election and we saw nobody get out.

Not nobody, but very low turnout.

People tried to blame it on the drizzle that was happening yesterday, and I thought, "That's a bad excuse to not get out and vote."

But as I was thinking on the way up here, these elections, the local elections are what matter, right?

They're not in DC arguing about Ukraine.

They're not at the state level arguing about should trans kids get such and such kind of healthcare.

These are the people that make sure that your trash is picked up.

These are the people that make sure when you turn the faucet, the water comes on.

They tell police how to do their jobs.

If you live in Memphis, this stuff is vitally important to your everyday life.

If you're gonna argue and complain about how Memphis is run, get out and do something, you know?

Go vote, and even if you didn't vote, you can still complain, but come on, folks.

We can do better than that.

- Bill, I mean, give or take, how bad was this compared to past elections?

- Well actually, if you look at just Paul Young's vote total of 24,408, that is the lowest total that a person has won the mayor's race by in just a straight up election or when we had runoff elections.

The previous record holder in this for the low total was Jim Strickland in 2015, who got elected with 41,829 votes.

- That's when he ran against Wharton, the incumbent Wharton.

- When he challenged Wharton four years before the reelection effort.

23.7% turnout is not the lowest.

- Wait, let's say that again.

Twernty-three percent of eligible voters turned out?

- Yes, 88,668.

In 2003, this is during Herenton's 5 terms in office, the turnout then was 17.4%, which was still more voters than we had yesterday, about 105,000.

In 2011, AC Wharton has won the special election in 2009, and he is the odds on favorite in 2011 to get a full term, which he did.

Eighteen percent of the voters turned out, with a turnout number that was actually lower than yesterday's 74,400.

- I would have thought those races might've been higher, but as a percentage of the eligible voters, it was not as bad.

- It's about normal.

- But we did see early voting turnout was higher than it had been in the last two elections, is that right, Bill?

- Yeah.

Early voting got about 7,000 more than we had in 2019 and 2015, so early voting was heavy, but as we've seen across election cycles, what has been happening recently is early voting is very encouraging in terms of its turnout.

A lot of people think, "Well great, election day's gonna be just off the chart."

No, election day turns out to be really flat.

- I bet the theory there is, and then we can move on to some policy stuff, but if you or somebody who's gonna vote and you've ever really voted, it's just way easier than the day of, and you can go wherever you want pretty much.

You can go whatever time and there are not a ton of lines.

Let's switch.

So, who is Paul Young?

I mean, I think and I hope people who've been watching this show, we've done interviews with all the major candidates.

We did a lot on The Daily Memphian, The Flyer did a lot, Commercial Appeal, all of the news.

I mean, there's a lot of information out there about the candidates, let alone what they were putting out there in their social medias, but Paul is 43 years old.

He was known to us as people in the business of journalism because he'd been head of HCD, Housing Community Development for the city and is currently about to resign as head of the Downtown Memphis Commission.

And a much respected guy, I think, as a kind of technocrat kind of person who really knows housing, master's in urban planning, all that kind of stuff.

But not the most, and I say this, I mean, not the most dynamic.

We've had lots of people sit down in the seat that Toby's in where you're like, "Whoa, that person's got aspirations."

Whatever their policies are, they have aspirations to you.

Paul would come and he'd talk about the way incentives could change downtown or he'd talk about the importance of affordable housing and federal money that could come in, and be incredibly versed in those issues, but you didn't have that sense, not that he wasn't ambitious, but I never had the sense that he was politically ambitious.

And a year ago, September 1, I think he decided to run for mayor, and he really, I don't know who wants to take this, but I thought it was interesting to watch his evolution from that, and I don't mean this dismissively, that technocratic personality to a very animated and passionate person and the son of two preachers and then kind of peaking last night when he came out as in his acceptance speech with Three 6 Mafia and both, I mean, it was a whole new Paul.

It was a whole Paul that we had not seen in many, many ways.

- It was a Paul that had always been there, and look, he told crowds during this campaign that at the start of this campaign, you didn't really know who I was, and I realized that I had to let you know who I am, because all policy still doesn't say what is the thing that voters want with it, and that is, they want to know who you are.

You can talk to them all day about what you're gonna do and what you have done, but then they want to know where'd you go to school and all of that, and what you see in Paul Young is a story of a lot of people in our city who are about that age group in their 40s, have a family, have a few kids, who initially went away to college and who were encouraged by their friends to not come back to Memphis, but who came back here anyway and came back with a plan.

So when we talked to Paul before he started running for this, he was all about getting things done.

He was all about whatever the plan was and whatever was before him.

Right behind that was this ambition to be the person who calls what the plan is.

- Right.

- Thoughts on Paul?

- Yeah, what you said.

I mean, all of his experience, HCD and the DMC, he's been there before, so when he did go out and introduce himself to voters, it wasn't like, "Hey, I'm a guy with a plan.

"You've never heard of me before.

"I've been on the front lines of this thing.

"I know how these deals work.

"I know what needs to happen here "to pull these things together.

I can actually make it happen."

And people really, really responded to that.

He's also even keeled.

People responded to that a lot.

As a lot of the stories this morning have said, he kind of went from a political unknown a year ago to the mayor's seat this morning.

I saw Paul at an event over the summer, and I think a lot of that happened because he was a busy man.

I was just like, "So what does your day look like today?"

And he was going through a list.

He'd already been up at seven doing something.

He had something that morning, the afternoon lunch thing that he was talking to groups until 7 p.m.

He was out there, he was getting with it.

Another thing that I love is he didn't ask me anything on Reddit, which I never saw another candidate do, so he's out there trying to appeal to those folks, too.

- He knew that he needed to build his name recognition, so when he started this campaign in September of 2022, he had this very aggressive schedule of fundraisers, which obviously worked.

In the process of doing three, four, five fundraisers a day at the outset, he got very good at this thing called campaigning very quickly.

He could tell his story.

If voters wanted more detail, I mean, one of the best things that connected with an audience that I ever saw was he talked about, "I was born in 1979.

"I remember going past the old Melrose High School.

"I come back to town, the old Melrose High School "is still not being used, and I'm tired of it.

"I want to see something happening.

"So we're in the process right now, voter, "of building out that school with the genealogy center and with housing."

- The other things about him, and we'll talk about some of the other candidates, but what I thought was interesting, and he wasn't unknown.

You talked about the fundraising.

He got a lot of the business community behind him.

But he also, as those early fundraising reports were coming in, he also had a huge, it was not just the depth and money people who were maxing out, but it was also the $25 from the person, and you list on these disclosure reports, employment, MLGW line worker.

Lots of $25.

He had the pages and pages of donations.

He clearly was, whether that was the machinery of fundraising or he was resonating with people, early on, you could see that he was getting donations from a far larger number of people.

Let's talk a little bit about Bonner and Herenton and Turner, the other three big candidates.

All of them, there were debates.

We did two debates, we interviewed all the top candidates here just one-on-one.

When you think about the top four, I know there's gonna be supporters of the candidates who are gonna just think I'm an idiot for saying this.

The differences of opinion were not that big.

There were different approaches.

But Van Turner, who was the most, I think everyone would agree, the most liberal of the top four, he started his interview sitting where Toby is by saying, not even necessarily that I had asked him.

He said, "I am not for defunding the police."

And he went immediately to "the studies show "we should have 2,500 police, and I agree with that.

"Now I also think we should do interventions and work with our youth and create opportunity," and he emphasized that more, but they all wanted 2,500 police and they all wanted to intervene with youth and young people more.

Again, there were clearly differences of opinion.

Bonner with his law enforcement background, Herenton with the history of Blue Crush and the way he ran the police department.

But I was struck that if you didn't know the personalities and you just lined up the policies, they weren't all that different.

- No, they weren't.

They all had different plans, and Van Turner's plan was for a blue wave to come in and do what we've seen happen now in the last two county general elections.

Everybody who identifies as a Democrat gets elected.

That was what his plan was.

If you're gonna create a wave, you can't start early on creating it.

That has to be a late breaking strategy that you have.

Otherwise, the wave hits too early or the wave doesn't hit at all, and the part about saying yes, I'm for having 2,300 cops and no, I'm not for defunding, was to avoid getting painted that, which was what the Bonner campaign was going to go for.

Bonner was really, the best term I've come up with for his approach to this is revolutionary, but that really doesn't fit, because what you had was a law enforcement professional who was saying, "I don't want to be the person "who's the police director.

I want to be the mayor."

I think what voters said in a hard fought contest was this is not a pendulum that swings between long-term approaches to crime and go out there and start arresting people and crack down and let people see you're cracking down.

I think what voters were saying in this meager turnout was it's not swinging back and forth.

We want both.

- Yeah.

- Thoughts on the whole race, thoughts on any of the other candidates?

- No, you're absolutely right.

Van Turner kind of got a late push there in the race, got the endorsement of Justin Pearson, who has really raised his profile, got some money from his PAC, turned out not to be enough, but it definitely bumped him in the polls a little bit in ways that you didn't see similar bumps for Bonner and Herenton.

- I would also say for all of the attention, and Van Turner lined up most of the progressive endorsements that were out there to be had, but then Paul Young comes in and gets the endorsement of the Shelby County Young Democrats, who has a really strong activist base.

And then on top of that, in a one-on-one showdown with Turner, he gets the endorsement of the Memphis People's Convention.

Young was not without his abilities in that regard.

- Last thing on them, one would think it was interesting to watch Herenton's concession speech was very gracious, very quick, but very gracious, seemed very genuine and said he was gonna, he wanted Paul Young to be successful and he wanted Memphis to be successful.

I did not see Turner's concession speech.

I must have gone to bed by that time, but Bonner was very, very gracious and very positive.

One would assume that Bonner's got his term, and then does he have one more term or is he termed out?

- No, this is it.

- So you would think, I don't know, you kind of feel like maybe he's had a very, everyone won't agree with this, but he's been a public servant for 45 years.

There've been controversies in the jail, but he's not without his critics, but I think he's been a committed public servant for 40 something years now.

Turner of the four, of the three who didn't win, the top four, he's not going anywhere.

There's something next for Paul, whether that is the county mayor's race down the road or that is, I don't know what, but he's young, he's got a big following.

I don't know, any guesses on what's next for Van Turner?

He's not going away, right?

- No, no, and he will continue to be a voice.

You don't need to hold an elected office to have a voice.

I think we're probably seeing more of that.

One comment about Willie Herenton.

He ran really well this time around.

He ran a vigorous campaign, and he was clearly more into this campaign than he was four years ago when he challenged Strickland, and it showed.

He actually did door to door campaigning, which Herenton really has his own playbook for what works for him, and what works for Willie Herenton is what kills other candidates just by saying some of the things that Herenton says, so he was very into this race.

- And the last thing before we leave the mayor's race, we were talking before we opened the show today about kind of how strange it was.

We were watching the vote totals come in, and then polls closed at seven, then by a little after nine, Bonner gets on television and I didn't know what he was gonna say, but he conceded the race right after that, and it seemed really early to me.

There was only a few precincts had reported, and then very soon after that Herenton did the same thing.

It just seemed really quick.

- Yeah, yeah.

It was a very odd, I thought.

I was settled in thinking, okay, Bonner's coming out to his supporters saying, "Hey, have some food, have some drinks.

It could be a long night.

We're gonna be counting."

He said, "I just got off the phone with Paul Young and I've conceded the race and wish him well," and Herenton not soon after.

We got just seven, eight minutes left here.

There was news and there are changes and there are gonna be runoffs in the City Council races.

Bill, you want to walk through, let's start with the runoffs.

- All right.

We have a runoff in, glasses back on.

Council District 2 between Jerry Green and Scott McCormick.

- And that is east Memphis, parts of Cordova and Hickory Hill.

- Right.

- Formerly held by Frank Colvett, city councilman who was termed out.

- Who's termed out.

Then City Council District 3, this is going to be Whitehaven, it's gonna be parts of Hickory Hill primarily.

You're gonna have a runoff there between Pearl Walker, who has been on this show in another capacity, and James Kirkwood, who is a retired police officer who was head of the City Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board.

- Pearl has been an activist and community leader in Whitehaven for many, many years, but keep going.

- Right, right.

And then we also have, this is the only runoff that involves a seat with an incumbent seeking reelection, and this is City Council District 7, Frayser, north Memphis and downtown.

Michalyn Easter-Thomas, who is the incumbent there, was just shy of the 50% plus one that you need to avoid a runoff.

She will be in that runoff on November 16th in that district with Jimmy Hassann, who is the owner of a men's clothing store that has been at Hollywood and Chelsea for the last 30 years.

District 7 always draws a crowded field in the last three or four cycles of this election, and it always goes to a runoff, so kind of not surprised at that.

- It wasn't so close, because Michalyn had 45% of the vote.

The next closest, Jimmy Hassann, had 16%, but technically you got, just so I say this, within the City Council races that aren't super districts?

- One through seven.

- So if it's your City Council district, not the super district, and there's not 50%, then there's a runoff.

If it's a super district, it's whoever gets the most votes.

If it's the mayor's race, it's whoever gets the most votes.

- No runoff.

- Totally makes sense, totally makes sense.

Don't think about it, just accept it.

Those will be coming up November 16th?

- November 16th.

- So about a month and a half campaigning.

Then let's talk for a second about District 5.

That was a big one.

I think it was the most expensive or the most spending of any of the races, and really in some ways, it was prominent in part because it was a super district.

It was an open seat and it was two candidates, Philip Spinosa, formerly a city councilman who had resigned back in 2018 or so to work for the Chamber of Commerce.

Kind of the more right-leaning, more Republican, they're nonpartisan races, but more of a Republican voice, more backed by the business community.

Lots of hooks in the business community, against Meggan Kiel, who is an activist, who is part of MICAH, I think former teacher.

Am I right about that?

And with more of a liberal, Democratic agenda.

It spoke to a lot.

Philip Spinosa won by quite a bit.

Where are my numbers?

I'm sorry.

It was not too close, but it's still an interesting one to highlight.

- 53% for Spinosa to 42% for Kiel in this race.

- So it's a solid win, but nonetheless, it's worth spending a little time on.

- Each of them raised six figure amounts in this campaign.

In each case they raised more money than some of the candidates for mayor.

And then after early voting, the break between early voting and election day, then you saw some of the third party PACs get involved in the race on both sides on this with some really vivid attack ads that were out there, - Vivid, vivid?

I did not see the vivid ones.

- Yes, yes.

It was, and the stakes on this were pretty high for the City Council, because this is the person who's going to succeed Worth Morgan on the City Council.

So the thinking was that this is an opportunity to either affirm that status of the seat or to change it in a big way.

- District 5, Super District 5, District 5, sorry, is east Memphis, parts of midtown, am I saying that right?

- That's right.

- Also parts of Binghampton.

- And again, a lot of it came down to crime.

A lot of these races, the mayor's race, so much about crime, policing.

Spinoza accusing Meggan Kiel of wanting to defund the police, Meggan Kiel, in pushing back, saying her definition of defund the police was redirecting money into intervention and community programs.

It was not disbanding and completely limiting all police, but it was heated.

It was a heated police-related conversation.

- It's just interesting to me that that was so hard fought out there in east Memphis, where most of this district is, and that these folks would go head to head, have to raise so much money, that it was so competitive for this thing.

I mean, it seems like a slam dunk for Philip Spinoza, business guy, former Chamber guy to go and win it.

That it was such a hard battle says a lot about maybe what's happening in these neighborhoods.

I also don't think we've seen the last of Meggan Kiel.

She'll be back.

- Yeah, and I think she said as much in her concession speech.

- In early voting too, we have all kinds of breakdowns in the figures from early voting, even before they're released, and in this case, this was the highest turnout of any Council district during early voting.

- Let's talk, with just a couple minutes left.

We were talking a little bit before, Toby.

We've got a new mayor, we've got a remade Council of some sort.

We don't exactly know, because we've still got some runoffs, but things, you were both a journalist and you are a longtime resident of Memphis.

We're talking about things that you want or you think your readers want to see from this new administration.

- As a reporter, I want to see more transparency, especially in the Mayor's Office.

It's often been the time that I will email or call up somebody at city hall and request an interview with somebody on an issue that I might not understand, and I get a two sentence statement that says, "Thank you for your request.

"We care a lot about this issue, and that's all we're gonna give you."

It's just head scratching.

I don't understand what's going on with that.

To reach anybody inside the city government, you gotta go through the press office first.

It's been a different thing.

Strickland often talked about how he was really transparent.

What we got was kind of a data dashboard out there that'll tell you certain data facts about the city, but nothing too exciting there.

For Paul Young, I hope that whoever their comms person is realizes that we're not just the press, we're the public.

We're trying to say, "What is this?

Give me more information about this issue."

Rather than just like, here's a statement, move along.

As a citizen, I'm really glad that our next mayor is gonna live in Memphis, has lived in Memphis for a while.

That's hopefully not a bad thing to say, but I think that's great.

I wish him all the best, because I do live here and I care deeply about the city.

- Yeah, I will second with just a couple seconds left.

I'll second the transparency is, and it's not just the city.

I've said this before on the show, it's terrible.

And again, it's not about us getting news stories for clicks and subscriptions and so on.

It is about being transparent with the public's money.

I know there are times and places where the county, the city, the state, various entities, they need to keep something and can't reveal it to us, but they have taken it way too far.

But we are out of time.

We'll have more, we'll try to get Paul Young before he is inaugurated in January on the show.

We're also gonna try to get Jim Strickland on to talk about his eight years in office.

Next week, we've got Germantown Mayor Mike Palazzolo.

So if you missed any of the show tonight, go to WKNO.org to get the full episode or download as a podcast.

Thanks very much.

We'll see you next week.

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