DAVID KUSTOFF
Former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff claimed the Republican nomination for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional district Thursday, Aug. 4, in a 15-county contest in which the eastern parts of Shelby County played a decisive role.
The low turnout election cycle before the November ballot topped by the Presidential general election also offered up a few surprises.
The overall voter turnout in Shelby County was 14.3 percent based on the 79,531 Shelby County citizens -- out of 556,002 voters on the rolls -- who voted in the Democratic and Republican primaries in the 8th and 9th Congressional districts. Together, the two districts cover all of Shelby County.
Of the 16 state Senators and state Representatives seeking re-election on the Shelby County ballot, only one incumbent legislator was upset.
District 95 Republican Curry Todd lost to primary challenger Mark Lovell.
In the nonprimary elections, sitting Chancellor Jim Newsom, who was appointed to Chancery Court earlier this year by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam lost to attorney Joe Jenkins.
Kustoff meets Democratic nominee Rickey Hobson in the November Congressional general election contest for the seat now held by Republican Stephen Fincher. The district is heavily Republican.
Fincher’s surprise announcement in February that he would not seek re-election set in motion a field of 13 candidates in the Republican primary, seven of them from Memphis.
Kustoff’s closest competitor proved to be former Shelby County Commissioner George Flinn with Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell the only other primary contender above 10,000 votes. State Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown finished fourth followed by Jackson businessman Brad Greer and Shelby County Register Tom Leatherwood.
None of the elected officials running gave up their current positions to run for Congress.
Flinn, who self-financed his campaign to the tune of $2.5 million out of $2.9 million total he reported in his campaign finance report at the end of June, was in the lead as the first votes outside Shelby County began to roll in. But that changed dramatically when the Shelby County early vote came in with Kustoff leading, followed by Luttrell and then Flinn.
Flinn’s self-financed campaign which was dominated by television advertising that began early and continued as the other contenders joined the move to the airwaves, was a contrast to Kustoff and Kelsey who each reported raising under $1 million to the end of June.
With all precincts in the 8th District reporting, the unofficial totals are:
Kustoff 16,886 or 27.4 percent
Flinn 14,197 or 23 percent
Luttrell 10,878 or 17.6 percent
Kelsey 7,941 or 12.9 percent
Greer 6,819 or 11 percent
Leatherwood 2,620 or 4.2 percent
“This race is half over,” Kustoff said Thursday evening, referring to Democratic nominee Hobson, a Delta Air Lines employee from Somerville. “We’re not going to take anything for granted.”
But total turnout in the Democratic primary contest between Hobson and Gregory Alan Frye was 14,185 compared to a turnout of 61,522 in the Republican primary.
In the 9th Congressional District, which is all within the borders of Shelby County, incumbent Democrat Steve Cohen coasted to victory in what was the easiest campaign he has had since claiming the open Congressional seat in 2006.
Shelby County Commissioner Justin Ford was Cohen’s closest competitor with Cohen claiming 35,628 of the 41,703 votes cast in the Democratic primary.
Cohen meets Republican nominee Wayne Alberson of Memphis in November. Alberson ran unopposed in Thursday’s GOP primary in the heavily Democratic Congressional district.
Curry Todd’s 18-year run on Capitol Hill in Nashville came to an end just two days after he was arrested on a theft warrant – accused and recorded removing Lovell’s campaign signs in Collierville weeks earlier. Lovell, the founder of the Delta Fair and other fairs across the country as well as trade shows, posted Todd’s bail.
Todd has said he had permission from the property owner to put his campaign signs on the property and also had permission to remove the signs of rival candidates.
Todd was vulnerable because of an earlier drunk driving and firearms arrest in Nashville in 2011 to which he pleaded guilty.
When all of the votes were counted in the primary contest Thursday, Todd’s vote total was closer to former Shelby County Schools board member Diane George that it was to Lovell’s. Dana Matheny was the fourth candidate in the race.
There is no Democratic nominee for the seat in the November general election.
With all 18 precincts reporting, the unofficial totals are:
Lovell 4,437
Todd 1,493
George 1,149
Matheny 833
There were other challenges within the Shelby County delegation that were won by incumbents.
The closest was the State House District 90 Democratic primary in which incumbent John Deberry beat Tami Sawyer, a Black Lives Matter activist who led the city’s original BLM protests in 2014.
Deberry won by 639 votes in a race that drew 4,824 votes.
Deberry has no Republican opposition in November.
State House District 85 Democratic incumbent Johnnie R. Turner easily beat primary challenger Keith Williams in a nearly 5,200 vote contest.
She has no Republican challenger in November.
Same song, second verse for State House District 98 Democratic incumbent Antonio Parkinson who defeated challenger Johnnie Hatten handily in a 3,609 vote primary.
There is no Republican candidate in the November general election in District 98.
And State Senate District 30 Democratic incumbent Sara Kyle easily defeated former state Senator Beverly Marrero in a 10,000 vote contest.
Kyle has no Republican challenger in November.
The nonpartisan race for Chancellor Part 3 was a hard-fought campaign in which Newsom had the endorsement of the local Republican Party. Jenkins campaigned hard including radio advertisements that are not commonly used in judicial races and a hand-to-hand campaign presence in the summer heat that was hard to match.
Attorney David Ferguson was also a factor, competing with Newsom for the Republican vote.
With all 166 precincts across Shelby County reporting, the unofficial totals were:
Jenkins 29,431
Newsom 23,859
Ferguson 18,056
Jenkins serves through the 2022 “big ballot” judicial elections completing an eight year term of office.
Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Valerie Smith, another Haslam vacancy appointee this year, also serves through the 2022 elections after easily defeating Michael Floyd in a contest that drew 74,131 voters countywide.
Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Ed Stanton won another four-year term of office Thursday defeating Republican challenger and Probate Court Clerk’s office accountant Richard Morton as well as independent perennial independent candidate William Chism in the only countywide election that was not a race for judge.
Stanton won the Democratic nomination and Morton the Republican nomination in March.
With all precincts reporting, the unofficial vote totals were:
Stanton 45,432
Morton 28,121
Chism 5,493
The only one of the five Shelby County Schools board races on Thursday’s ballot that was contested ended with the re-election of District 3 incumbent Stephanie Love over Sharon Fields by 990 votes in a contest that drew 5,438 voters.
And Bartlett Municipal Court Judge Tim Francavilla easily won election Thursday over challenger Henry Miller in a 6,430 vote contest.
All 10 state appellate court judges on Thursday’s ballot statewide were retained in the non-contested retention races that offered voters a choice of voting to retain or replace each of the judges.
Elsewhere in the state,
State House Republican incumbent Jeremy Durham of Franklin, Tennessee lost a re-election bid to primary challenger Sam Whitson.
Allegations that Durham sexually harassed numerous women working on Capitol Hill were supported by an investigation by the Tennessee Attorney General’s office. And House speaker Beth Harwell had Durham’s office moved to another building on the hill so that Durham would have no contact with women working for the legislature. Haslam also called on Durham to resign.
Durham denied the allegations.
Republican U.S Rep. Diane Black easily beat challenger and former state Representative Joe Carr in Tennessee’s 6th Congressional district.
For Carr it is his second defeat in two years, having lost a primary challenge of U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander in 2014. In both campaigns, Carr aligned his effort with Tea Party conservatives.
For Black, the victory continues her consideration of a bid for Tennessee Governor in 2018.
The closest call in the nine-member U.S. House delegation from Tennessee was in the 4th Congressional district where Republican incumbent Scott DesJarlais tallied 52 percent of the vote, holding off a challenge from Grant Starrett in a campaign that was heavy on controversies in DesJarlais’ personal life.