In a race featuring campaigns that ramped up in January (before most were even paying attention to the contests), Will Pinkston won in the District 7 school board race, eeking out a 36-vote win over Jackson Miller.
“I am glad that this campaign is over and that the voters have spoken,” Pinkston said, sounding less triumphant than you might expect from a winner. “It was a close race and I’m pleased to be able to serve another four years working for students, parents, teachers and taxpayers. I am deeply troubled by — and I think all of Nashville should be concerned about — the massive amounts of negative special interest money being poured into these races from all over the country. I was the subject of fairly brutal attacks, over the course of the past month in particular.”
Pinkston estimated that upward of $175,000 was spent trying to beat him.
“Over the last two weeks alone, my district was flooded with probably 150,000 negative mail pieces,” Pinkston says. “I had constituents tell me they were opening their mailboxes and getting two and three negative pieces a day. I think we should all be concerned about what’s going on in this community. … As a city, I think we’ve got a lot of soul searching to do.”
Miller did not respond to requests for comment.
The results would appear to be a repudiation of Stand for Children Tennessee's attempts to craft a charter school-friendly board. Through an independent expenditure committee, the charter organization put $230,000 in July alone in to the races, all behind candidates who eventually lost, including Miller.
The other incumbents in the school board races, District 1’s Sharon Gentry, District 3’s Jill Speering and District 9’s Amy Frogge also beat out their opponents, although with less of a fight than Pinkston had to put up.
Frogge, much like in her last run against Margaret Dolan in 2012, came out ahead of Thom Druffel 2-to-1 in District 9. Druffel outraised Frogge by $24,000.
The empty seat left by Elissa Kim in District 5 went to Christiane Buggs, who managed a surprisingly strong victory over Miranda Christy, despite being out-fundraised by more than $17,000 in the race. Buggs won by about 1,500 votes.
The two others running in District 5, Erica Lanier and Corey Gathings, didn’t come close, managing less than 400 votes a piece. Neither Buggs nor Christy responded to requests for comment.
