Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon has been reelected for a second term. She received more than half of the votes cast in the primary, meaning she will not face a challenger in the general election under municipal election rules.
The race had been a fairly sleepy affair from the start and the Aug. 29 results played out with Kincannon easily dispatching her overmatched opponents, garnering 57.5% of the vote.
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Because Kincannon finished with at least 50% of votes cast plus one, she will not face a runoff in the general election Nov. 7. This follows the pattern set by the city’s last two elected mayors, who each won reelection in the primary (Bill Haslam twice, 2003 and 2007, and Madeline Rogero once in 2015).
The race was Kincannon’s to lose from the beginning. Though the race was nonpartisan, she had the most name recognition heading into the election season and the power of incumbency. Jeff Talman, who touted his extensive experience in mortgage banking, finished second with 29% of the vote. Community activist Constance Every finished third with 8% of the vote and R.C. Lawhorn finished fourth with 5%.
Four more years
Kincannon looked out over a room of supporters at Potchke deli in downtown Knoxville nearly four years after first being elected mayor.A lot had changed since then. The restaurant didn’t even exist and her youngest daughter couldn’t vote.In the honor of family, Kincannon took the makeshift stage wearing her late mother’s watch and began her speech with 73% of precincts reporting. Rather than talk about her personal accomplishments in office, Kincannon spent the better part of her opening remarks sharing stories of how city employees make Knoxville a better place. It’s the work of these people, she said, that led voters to support her reelection.By the time the speech was finished, the final results were in: four more years.“I feel really thankful for the people of the city who have the confidence in me to reelect me,” she told reporters. “They can expect that I’m going to work hard and listen.”
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Still, her margins − which are unofficial − fell well short of reelection efforts by Haslam and Rogero. Haslam won reelection with 87% of the vote in the primary in 2007 and Rogero won with nearly 99% of the vote in the 2015 primary.
Bill Lyons was a senior advisor for mayors Haslam, Rogero and he assisted Kincannon with her transition into office four years ago. He said while Kincannon was well short of the returns Haslam and Rogero received in their reelection campaigns, those two faced “token competition,” and Kincannon’s was more formidable.
“She’s well over 50% and that’s a strong performance,” he said. “She had some serious opposition. That shows some dissatisfaction with her in the community but a pretty good support for the direction of the city.”
Kincannon credited her victory to “city workers who keep voters safe, bring them public services.” She acknowledged the challenges in the public arena, saying “it’s been a tumultuous time in our city, in our planet.”
Turnout was low. Tuesday’s primary failed to reach even 20,000 voters for the third straight primary, according to data provided by Knox County Elections Administrator Chris Davis.
Kincannon’s record
Kincannon, 52, served on the Knox County Board of Education for 10 years before becoming the city’s second woman elected mayor.
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She has touted her dedication as mayor to public safety, reversing climate change, building economic opportunity and increasing affordable housing. In 2021, the city council approved Kincannon’s proposal for a $50 million allocation over 10 years for a new Affordable Housing Fund.
“We have to do many things because this is a crisis and we need to act with a sense of urgency,” Kincannon told Knox News earlier this month. “We have made considerable progress.”
Over the next four years, she plans to recruit and train more police officers, complete the transformation of Western Heights community, continue to reduce the city’s carbon emissions and pursue economic opportunities created by the Tennessee Smokies stadium under construction in the Old City.
As a private-public partnership, the stadium will cost $114 million and is intended to host the Smokies baseball team and the One Knox soccer team.
The stadium will support thousands of jobs and catalyze private investments of more than $100 million, according to Kincannon’s campaign website.
Kincannon and her supporters gathered at Potchke deli to monitor the election results. When it became clear Kincannon had won, her husband, Ben Barton, introduced her as “the next mayor of Knoxville.”
Source: https://t-tees.com
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