Mark Tuesday April 22 on your smartphone calendar. Better yet, set up an alarm that morning to go vote in the city runoff elections. This are only a few days from now!
The Northside did a great job turning out and giving John Horhn a huge lead over incumbent Chokwe Lumumba in the Democratic primary for mayor. But the job is half finished. If turnout drops substantially, the race could be close. So be sure to finish the job and turn out on Tuesday, April 22.
What a difference four years makes. In 2021 Lumumba won 69 percent of the vote in both the Democratic primary and the general election over a fairly weak field.
This year Lumumba only got 17 percent against a strong field. Horhn got more than 48 percent of the vote.
What’s the difference? 1) Lumumba’s indictment for bribery, 2) the water disaster, 3) the garbage disaster. Voters do pay attention in the end.
Horhn has been cruising to his state senate victories since 1993. That’s a whopping 32 years of state senate electoral victories. That’s impressive.
But when Horhn ran against Lumumba in the 2017 mayoral race he lost 55 to 21 percent and couldn’t even force a runoff. Lumumba cruised to a general election victory with 92 percent. There were 34,088 votes cast in the 2017 Democratic primary compared to 24,591 votes cast this year. That’s a huge drop in turn out.
Lumumba’s 2017 victory came over incumbent Tony Yarber who only got five percent of the Democratic primary vote. Three years earlier in the 2014 special election, Yarber and Lumumba tied in the Democratic primary and Yarber beat Lumumba 53 to 46 in the runoff.
How did Yarber receive 20,463 votes in 2014 and only 1,843 votes in 2017? How did Yarber fall so far so fast? Same answer: Yarber was involved in several corruption scandals that tainted his reputation. The voters took notice and booted him out of office.
In 2013, the elder Lumumba ran third in the Democratic Party with 24 percent, solidly behind front runner Jonathan Lee with 35 percent. Three-term mayor Harvey Johnson ran third with only 21 percent.
Johnson was perceived as being too much of a planner and not a doer. But what really did him in was his failure to pave the city roads, leading to the beginning of Jackson’s pothole disaster. Voters were ready for a change. Lee, the primary front runner, got pegged as too popular in northeast Jackson. The elder Lumumba beat him 54 to 46 in the Democratic primary runoff only to die one year into his term.
The 2009 Jackson mayoral election also involved an incumbent losing badly. This time Frank Melton, who ran a distant third in the Democratic primary with only 18 percent of the vote. This election also resulted in the return of Harvey Johnson after Melton beat Johnson with 63 percent of the vote in the 2005 Democratic primary.
Melton was the wildest of all the mayors. He drove around in a vigilante van with his cronies demolishing alleged drug dealers’ houses. Rumors of alcohol, drug and sex scandals abounded. Eventually, Melton was charged with felony offenses for his wild behavior, which twice resulted in hung juries. Melton died of a heart attack just days after Johnson’s comeback victory over him.
The lesson to be learned here is that Jackson voters don’t have a lot of tolerance for embarrassing, illegal or incompetent behavior in office. Jackson voters have shown no hesitation at all in booting incumbent mayors out of office. Indeed, incumbents being booted out is the rule, not the exception.
Melton, Yarber and Lumumba were all unknown quantities. Melton was a WLBT CEO who gained fame with his conservative 30-second news show editorials. He was an amazing speaker who had the knack of sizing up his audience and telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. He was brilliant in many ways but also eccentric, even perhaps a bit nuts. In the end, he was unfit for public office.
Yarber came from the city council and seemed like a bright fresh face. He was a motivational speaker. But he got caught up in some shady government contracts and was caught getting wined and dined at strip clubs by would-be city contractors.
Lumumba junior rode in on his father’s wave. The senior Lumumba, although only in office for a year, proved to be practical and skilled, despite his long history with black radicalism.
So when the junior Lumumba proclaimed “free the land” and promised to make Jackson “the most radical city in America,” most Jackson voters shrugged it off as campaign rhetoric. The smooth talking Lumumba was re-elected by a landslide and then the wheels of the city started coming off. Turns out, Chokwe Antar was better at talking a good game than running a city. Voters might forgive a little incompetence, but combining incompetence with corruption was too much.
Horhn is a known quantity. Hopefully, he will work with state leaders who want to turn Jackson around. And don’t count out Rodney DePriest. He could be a serious contender in the general election.
