The first election day – the “nonpartisan primary” – is March 7. For some wards, the match-ups will look no different in the March primary than they will on the April 4 general election. For the races in Wards 5, 6, 10, and 11, all candidates are guaranteed to have their names on the April 4 ballot. Every other ward – except for Ward 3, where incumbent Alderman Shane Cohn is unchallenged – will lose at least one candidate after March 7. We’ll revisit those races closer to the April 4 general election.
On Monday of this week, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones announced her endorsed candidates: Daniela Velazquez in Ward 6, Alisha Sonnier in Ward 7, Shedrick Kelley in Ward 8, Shameem Clark-Hubbard in Ward 10, Tashara Earl in Ward 12, and Rasheen Aldridge in Ward 14. Some of Comptroller Darlene Green’s endorsements have been shared on candidates’ websites: Sonnier and Bret Narayan in Ward 4 are backed by Green. Needless to say, we like what we see in each candidate endorsed by Mayor Jones and Comptroller Green!
A noteworthy tidbit: six of the fourteen aldermanic races include one woman candidate who faces at least two male opponents on March 7. We applaud the women who bravely stand alone in their races.
We’d first like to give a special shout-out to Ward 7 alderperson candidate and current SLPS Board of Education member Sonnier, who makes history by being the first aldermanic candidate to receive the coveted endorsement by the city’s first ever all-women Board of Estimate & Apportionment, comprised of the Mayor, the Comptroller, and the Board President. We like to refer to them as the “ShE & A” Board.
Sonnier is the first candidate in at least the last forty years to receive the support of the powerful “Trifecta.” Between the citywide support and collecting nearly every labor endorsement available to aldermanic candidates, Sonnier certainly starts March 7 with an advantage over her two male opponents.
Fellow candidate and current incumbent Alderwoman Anne Schweitzer holds a similarly-strong advantage over her two male opponents, sharing her extremely high record of providing constituent services, including attending nearly 130 neighborhood meetings and returning more than 7,000 emails and calls throughout her two years in office. All done during a global pandemic, to boot.
Next door, things have been quiet in Ward 2 since candidate Katie Bellis – our third lone woman candidate in a field otherwise full of men – announced her endorsement by the St. Louis chapter of the Democratic Socialists. To be fair, her primary opponent and current incumbent Alderman Tom Oldenburg hasn’t made much noise, either, as (perhaps) the only Kelley Group-backed candidate in the entire election cycle. Our readers will recall the Kelley Group as the once-powerful political machine operated by consultant Mike Kelley, who ran the successful campaigns of now-convicted white collar criminals Steve Stenger (St. Louis County Executive) and Lewis Reed (St. Louis City Aldermanic Board President). We haven’t heard much from his group since the Kelley Group’s embarrassing double-digit loss – both in the primary and general elections – retiring alderman Jack Coatar’s bid for board president.
Speaking of Coatar, the race to represent his home neighborhood of Soulard, along with Lafayette Square, McKinley Heights, and Benton Park, is another one-woman-versus-two-men scenario. However, incumbent Alderwoman Cara Spencer and former alderman Ken Ortmann are at the disadvantage to Mayor Jones-endorsed Shedrick Kelley. Kelley was Coatar’s last challenger for the old 7th Ward seat in 2021, losing by only 124 votes. While Spencer’s name was on the same ballot for her unsuccessful campaign against Mayor Jones, she did scrape together 220 more votes for her city-wide race versus Kelley’s ward-level race. Spencer may have the endorsement of Coatar, but we see that more as an impediment than a boost, especially considering Spencer’s own back room deals with developers against her constituents’ wishes. After all, Coatar’s tenure on the Board will be remembered mostly for his corruption and secret development deals.
For Ward 9, incumbent Alderwoman Tina Pihl faces incumbent Alderman Mike Gras and political newcomer Michael Browning. Gras has unfortunately shown himself to be not terribly dissimilar from Coatar in terms of being a lawyer making backroom deals with developers, while Pihl has apparently lost herself responding to the high demands of the office and meeting constituent services needs. Browning, the former vice president of the Forest Park Southeast Neighborhood Association is impressive on issues of policy and thoughtful structural change that would bring greater efficiency to city governance and uplift the entire community. He may have the advantage here as the only candidate without a voting record to leverage against him.
Browning also comes with two powerful progressive organizations behind him: Meyers-Okohson Political Consulting, or MOPC, the political machine of veteran campaigner Rosetta Okohson, who ran the successful campaigns of Mayor Jones, Comptroller Green, James Page’s flipping of the former 5th Ward, and Clean Missouri’s 2018 ballot initiative; and the St. Louis Young Democrats, where Browning recently served as outreach directorfor the organization. His long-standing ties to his community predate both incumbents’ time in office and the campaign reportedly has knocked on more than ten THOUSAND doors.
Ward 12 has shaped up to be one of the more interesting of this election cycle – and the busiest. With five candidates in the race – three women and two men – March 7 undoubtedly holds a much different kind of pressure for each contestant. While the two male candidates hold their own as active members in their communities, the most serious opponents facing incumbent Alderwoman Sharon Tyus are recent aldermanic candidate Yolanda Brown and Baden neighborhood association president Tashara Earl. Earl has received both Mayor Jones’ and President Green’s endorsements and comes with strong support from Baden, where she was born and raised.
Up in Ward 14, Ebony Washington – granddaughter of former state representative Penny Hubbard and niece of former alderwoman Tammika Hubbard – faces three male opponents, and every candidate enters March 7 with their own strong name recognition. Aldridge, a community organizer who is endorsed by Mayor Jones, is positioned to perform the strongest, as his current state legislative district overlaps much of the newly-redistricted ward. Washington may have unintentionally stepped into “it,” however, when she bought City Sheriff Vernon Betts in to make robo-calls to 14th Ward voters on her behalf over the weekend.
The problem? The Riverfront Times released audio recordings earlier this week of Betts demoting one of his own deputies and using racial slurs against the deputy because he did not support Betts’ political campaign. In a state lawsuit filed by the deputy against Betts, he also alleges that Betts first retaliated against him for supporting Michelle Sherrod in her state senate campaign against Steve Roberts, Jr. in 2018. The multiply credibly-accused serial sexual abuser is the son of Steve Roberts, Sr., who is currently chief of staff for Betts’ office. Betts has not hidden his open political favoritism, but this time, he may have crossed a serious labor law for the sake of petty politics.
Incumbent Alderman Brandon Bosley, after police reports revealed that he either is or was under investigation for hitting a woman with his vehicle during a December snowstorm, has gone on the offensive, but apparently has only dug himself into a deeper hole. The other incumbent, Alderman James Page, may be the only other serious candidate in the race with Aldridge, but Page recently parted ways with his political operative, the formidable MO Political Consulting.
Ward 4 – the only all-male race – likely will see incumbent Alderman Bret Narayan versus incumbent Alderman Joe Vacarro through to April 4. The third candidate Casey Otto – who is the son of former state legislator Bill Otto – has name recognition, but likely not enough to overcome two current elected officials who are both known for providing outstanding constituent services. Only one of those two, however, doesn’t require campaign donations to make things happen. For that reason as well as the fact that Narayan is working with MO Political Consulting, we would give the advantage to Narayan in both the primary and the general.
The race for Ward 13 is the only all-women aldermanic race, and the only race where every candidate is a current incumbent. Due to ward redistricting, Alderwomen Lisa Middlebrook, Pamela Boyd, and Laura Keys face each other for one ward seat. Previously referred to by this column as the “Ladies for Lewis” caucus, Middlebrook and Boyd were known for their staunch ties to former board president Reed and none of them are particularly well-known for their voter engagement or canvassing. Keys does have the most recent experience with the campaign grind, winning a four-way special election for the vacant 21st Ward seat.
No-excuse absentee voting began earlier this week, on Tuesday, and city residents can vote at the Board of Elections office or at one of three satellite locations at the Buder, Schlafly, and Walnut Park branches of the St. Louis Public Library.
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Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t address the recent shocking resignation of Missouri State Democrat Party chairman and City Recorder of Deeds Michael Butler. In an emailed statement, Butler claimed that his bar in the Grove “recently received a large financial investment, and required more” of his time – with no mention of his actual job, the one that St. Louis City voters elected him to and the one that pays him $103,000 annually. That job, depending on who you ask at City Hall, is one where Butler mostly shows up for work only half of the time. But after a hard battle to keep the (unpaid) party chair role, Butler made his resignation effective next week on February 28.
The state committee will meet on March 18 to select a new chairperson. Until then, Party Secretary Jonathan Kessler is serving as interim chair. Chairman Butler started his time in office by firing all of the party staff members who were in the process of unionizing,ultimately settling out of federal labor court for an undisclosed amount of money. The staff members who were not part of the union bargaining unit remained employed by the state party. Butler made a similar move on his first day in office as City Recorder of Deeds, by firing senior-level employees who did not support his political campaign. Similarly, Butler settled out of federal court with the four employees – completing mediation with Recorders’ employees mere days before firing the state party employees. From that point, Butler’s – and the Democratic Party’s – relationships with St. Louis, Kansas City, and Missouri labor bulwarks in the party waned substantially.
Under Butler’s leadership, the Missouri Democratic Party has lost every statewide seat and now holds less than a third of all legislative seats. With no credit to the state party and all credit given to the candidates themselves, Democrats hold only two congressional seats in Missouri. Congresswoman Cori Bush’s opponent – the aforementioned Roberts, Jr. – was privately supported by Butler in the primary last summer. Roberts, Jr.,lost by nearly 46 percentage points in the City of St. Louis to the well-loved Bush.
But we must also consider the other dubious ways that he made history: by losing much of the political ground gained over the last several decades.
He will certainly be remembered for his consequential time as state Democratic Party chairman.
