Early voting starts Friday, July 14, for Nashville’s municipal elections. An open race for mayor tops the ballot, while Vice Mayor Jim Shulman tries to defend his seat against a challenge from Councilmember Angie Henderson. All 40 seats on the Metro Council are up, including five countywide at-large positions.
Some voters in East and South Nashville will choose their state representative in special elections for Districts 51 and 52, following Republicans’ expulsion of incumbent Democrat Rep. Justin Jones and the June 4 death of Rep. Bill Beck.Â
In a field of 12 mayoral candidates, polling and fundraising put District 19 Councilmember Freddie O’Connell and former city finance executive Matt Wiltshire in strong positions to make the runoff, while state Sen. Jeff Yarbro has the most money on hand to spend. No candidate is expected to win outright with more than 50 percent of the vote, setting up a bonus month of campaigning for the race’s top two vote-getters — like Megan Barry and David Fox in 2015, and John Cooper and David Briley in 2019. Wiltshire has already started fundraising for a runoff push, an apparent campaign finance violation reported by the Nashville Banner. The campaign explained it was acting on bad advice from the Davidson County Election Commission and has started returning more than $36,000.
A recent poll by Music City Research, commissioned by a private entity not associated with a campaign, shows 26 percent undecided less than a month before Election Day, a massive chunk of voters for candidates to win over in home-stretch ad buys. The same poll shows O’Connell leading with 20 percent of decided voters. Wiltshire follows with 15 percent, while conservative Alice Rolli comes in third with 13 percent. (The poll was released by MCR-affiliated group Harpeth Strategies, whose president is Metro Councilmember Dave Rosenberg. Rosenberg has endorsed O'Connell.)
All early voting locations will be open to Davidson County residents from Friday, July 14, to Saturday, July 29. The Banner also reported that Davidson County has added 63,157 people to voter rolls since the last local elections in 2019.
Find a sample ballot at this link, with more links to the Scene's election reporting below.
With five weeks until Election Day, we ask eight mayoral candidates for their thoughts on transit, homelessness, education and crime
All 40 Metro Council seats are up for election, and early voting begins in one month
Our interviews with candidates for the Metro Council’s five countywide seats
We asked the field for their position on license plate readers, the Titans stadium, property taxes and more
Facing a challenge from inside the council, incumbent Vice Mayor Jim Shulman discusses the structural power of the chamber’s top seat
District 34's term-limited Metro councilmember looks to unseat Vice Mayor Shulman
