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    • Memphis Democrats talked a lot about the TN House elections. What happened?
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    Memphis Democrats talked a lot about the TN House elections. What happened?

    Sakege Posted on

    He Democrats lost a lot of ground throughout the United States Election day.

    Former President Donald Trumpnow president-elect, he surpassed Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris in key states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. Republicans are also expected to control the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

    A New York Times analysis found that Trump expanded his 2020 margin in 2,367 counties nationwide and decreased his performance in just 240 counties. Harris failed to win over key Democratic demographic groups such as black, Hispanic and working-class voters.

    Here in Shelby County, political circles have been talking about Tennessee House Districts 83 and 97. Both districts were considered “purple”, with District 97 being more like that. The Democratic candidates’ hope was to win the seats, albeit by narrow margins, and help reduce the Republican supermajority in the Tennessee legislature.

    Both campaigns fell short. The candidates contributed to losses across the board, lack of support from local parties, and low voter turnout.

    With voter turnout at 55% countywide, this year’s general election had one of the lowest of recent general elections. Participation in 2024 was 8% lower than in 2020 and 5% lower than in 2016.

    There was support from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which is a national fundraising organization whose goal is to elect Democratic candidates at the state level.

    The DLCC targeted three races in Tennessee to raise more money and hopefully reduce the Republican supermajority. One of those races was District 97, and the group encouraged its donor base to donate funds to Democratic candidate Jesse Huseth.

    Significant groundwork was done for Huseth’s campaign, knocking on over 20,000 doors and distributing mailers to the majority of the electorate based on his campaign.

    Noah Nordstrom’s campaign also took an action-on-the-ground approach, educating voters about his 83rd District. Current Republican opponent Mark White position on school choice vouchers.

    But neither candidate won their race.

    2020 gave them hope, but lower-than-expected voter turnout in 2024 changed that

    In 2020, countywide voter turnout for the presidential election was 63% or 384,280 voters. This year only 329,656 voters cast ballots in Shelby County.

    In a four-year period, there was a decrease of 54,623 voters. In District 97, the average turnout across all districts was 56%. Huseth, who campaigned against Republican incumbent John Gillespie in District 97, said this could be partially to blame.

    “Given that nationally, I think Donald Trump got 3 million fewer votes than last time, and Harris got 15 million fewer than Joe Biden, my immediate thought is that we had a turnout problem, that either people were exhausted or were not “I don’t feel adequately aligned with any candidate or things of that nature,” Huseth said.

    In 2022, turnout in District 97 was 21,302 votes, just after it was redistricted to include more Democratic parts of the county and fewer Republican parts of Bartlett. Gillespie handily won his 2022 election with 13.4% against Toniko Harris.

    From 2022 to 2024, 10,364 more people voted in District 97. Huseth’s campaign was also one of the only races in which statewide Democrats did not lose ground in 2024.

    “I think (Bryan) Goldberg, in the East… lost by eight points. I think Allie Phillips lost by 10 (percentage points), and I think (Luis) Mata, (lost by), I think it’s 14 or 15 (percentage points) points),” Huseth said.

    Huseth lost by just 3.4 percentage points and 1,077 total votes.

    Low voter turnout in the August primary was a red flag for Huseth. In August, voter turnout was 13%, the lowest since 2004.

    “We saw, you know, that big drop in voters in August, which was kind of like a red flare saying, ‘Hey, it was a voter issue right now,'” Huseth said. “I think the national trend was six points to the right. You know, we moved the district nine points to the left compared to the last election.”

    Huseth does not plan to run again, for now.

    “I’ve told everyone who’s asked me, and my God, I’m not kidding, you’re probably the 50th person to ask me if I’m going to run again, and my immediate thought is how dare you,” Huseth said jokingly. . “I’m going to give back, and when I’m done giving back and maybe when I’m not feeling so heavy, I’ll review what I’m going to do…obviously, I’ve acquired more skills in Serving my community and I’m not going to waste it.”

    Are there “purple” districts in the suburbs?

    Early in the campaigns for both Huseth and Nordstrom, the big push was the “purple coloring” of parts of Districts 83 and 97. In 2020, there was a significant swing in voters voting for President Joe Biden.

    For District 83, Nordstrom said he expected to see similar results from White’s previous Democratic rivals. In 2020, Jerri Green, now on the Memphis City Council, ran against White and received 45% of the vote, or 15,063 of the total votes cast.

    The Whites defeated the Greens in 2020 with 17,682 votes, or 53.94%.

    This time, White received 57.8% of the vote and 19,898 votes in total. Nordstrom followed with 42% of the votes or 14,476 total votes.

    Huseth said it’s obvious now more than ever that Democrats have the will to lead in the suburbs.

    “I’m not sitting here patting myself on the back for a loss, but we have to make sure we’re talking about the real desires of voters, and not just what we think as Democrats and Republicans we want to hear…” The reason “Why this race was so competitive is because it’s a purple district and I ran in a purple race,” Huseth said.

    In the 2022 election, 17,231 voters cast ballots when White ran unopposed.

    Turnout in District 83 precincts averaged 63%.

    The last minute change in the leadership of the local party could be partly to blame

    In the weeks leading up to the start of early voting for the general election, the local Shelby County Democratic Party had a leadership change.

    On September 16, the party announced that Shelby County Commissioner Miska Clay Bibbs, Memphis City Council President JB Smiley, former state Rep. Dwayne Thompson and Danielle Inez, former chief of staff to the county mayor Shelby, Lee Harris, would be the new leaders of the party. the party.

    “You can’t change direction at the last minute and correct course for 18 months of misdirection,” Huseth said.

    Huseth was on the local party’s executive committee for six years before his candidacy and was on the steering committee for four years before that. He resigned to run his race.

    “But I feel like we, as the driving force of volunteerism, is where we fail. The people who volunteer on my campaign, we create those volunteers,” Huseth said. “There should be an easily accessible volunteer base for competitive campaigns coming from the county party. And unfortunately, for whatever reason, that didn’t materialize after August 1.”

    Nordstrom said on election night that he didn’t want to blame anyone for his loss, but he did say local support could have been better.

    “I think, especially in Tennessee, the Democratic infrastructure is generally pretty weak. I don’t mean that as an insult to my party… it’s a state where Democrats feel defeated all the time,” Nordstrom said. saying. “I think we have a lot of work to do in terms of coming together, becoming more organized and united…”

    Sakege
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