Latest news with #mayorElection
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Democratic leaders visit MS Coast to rally vote in high-stakes Gulfport election
Suddenly, after months of relentless campaigns, the national political leaders who arrived this week in Gulfport are trying to force new urgency into the last days of the mayor's race. 'We don't quit,' Democratic politician and activist Stacey Abrams said at a Sunday campaign stop in Gulfport several miles from where she grew up. 'They've been trying to stop us for 200 years. And what we are going to do instead is show up.' Abrams appeared with U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson to campaign for mayoral candidate Sonya Williams Barnes at an event advertised as a kick-off to the election on Tuesday. In impassioned speeches, the Democratic leaders called the race a 'bellwether election' that could signal broader change across Mississippi and even the country. But the appearance of two prominent Democrats was also a sign of how tense the race has become. Abrams spoke four days after Mississippi's Republican Attorney General said she was investigating Barnes following Republican complaints that some locals gave restaurant vouchers to voters in what the party calls a violation of state law. Barnes and other Democrats have dismissed the accusations as a false and politically-motivated distraction. And conservatives are energized too. At a Friday rally for Republican candidate Hugh Keating, top leaders warned their party that the race was close and pleaded that they vote. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina spoke alongside U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell and outgoing Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes. 'Call your friends. Call your neighbors,' Scott told the crowd on Friday. 'This is a race that will require you to go the extra mile.' About 200 people gathered on a usually-quiet stretch of 31st Avenue to hear Abrams, Barnes and Thompson, who also pleaded that residents urge everyone they know to vote. The leaders said federal cuts by the Trump administration were worrisome for Gulfport and told supporters Barnes would be an ally they could turn to in local government for help. 'All you have to do is go out and vote,' Thompson said. The crowd, sweating in the heat, clapped and cheered approval. Turnout, often low in local elections, has already been notable: City officials said last week they had received over 1,000 absentee ballots compared to just 177 during the last mayoral election. Barnes won the April Democratic primary with 3,316 votes — over 600 more than outgoing Republican Mayor Billy Hewes won in the 2021 general election. Keating had no opponent in the 2025 Republican primary. Abrams said she came to Gulfport after she heard some Republicans had called her an outsider part of a national Democratic effort to turn Gulfport blue. 'With President Trump's success, the Democrats are pretty angry right now,' Hyde-Smith told the Republican rally on Friday. 'This is called revenge, getting back and gaining ground,' she added. 'We can't seem to get the national Democrats out of this race.' Barnes has said she alone is responsible for running her campaign and called similar statements divisive. Abrams spent much of her childhood in the city, and she and Barnes are the children of United Methodist ministers who were friends. Still, Keating said last week that the Attorney General's investigation is concerning to Republicans. How fast it will proceed is unclear because the Attorney General's office does not comment on open inquiries. Barnes did not address the investigation on Sunday but said last week she had met with two of the Attorney General's investigators. Both campaigns have been calling residents and knocking on doors in a last-ditch effort to encourage turnout and lure undecided voters before polls close on Tuesday. 'We can't quit,' Keating said Friday. 'We're noticing some very positive results.' 'We need to win,' Barnes told voters on Sunday. 'But we can win only with you.' Anita Lee contributed reporting.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Jamie Smith enters Sioux Falls mayoral race with downtown speech
State Sen. Jamie Smith officially launched his campaign to be mayor of Sioux Falls in a May 31 speech on the front lawn of the Washington Pavilion, telling a crowd of friends, family and supporters that he would "always be available to you" if elected to the role. After introductions from people, including downtown business owner Michael Haskett and Smith's wife Kjerstin, Smith himself took the stage and gave a short speech in which he said how the city approaches things like development and the rule of law will be determined by its next mayor. 'Government can be a force for good when it is powered by the people that it serves," Smith said. He emphasized an interest in meeting with voters and hearing their ideas, adding, "Our city is best when we collaborate and when we communicate." Speaking with media following his speech, Smith said he learned a lot from his 2022 gubernatorial race against former Gov. Kristi Noem, including the importance of making others feel seen and heard, even if there isn't full agreement on an issue. Smith's campaign website cites families, development and safety as the three main parts of his platform, specifically pointing to the ongoing property tax cap issue as evidence that "the next mayor will need a strong relationship with the state legislature to keep South Dakota's largest city budget balanced." While Smith said he'd certainly have done some things differently as mayor during the last eight years, he said he didn't have anything he wanted to criticize about Mayor Paul TenHaken. Instead, he's focusing on looking forward to what his own administration would look like. Smith, one of the few elected Democrats in South Dakota's government, said he liked the idea that the mayoral position is non-partisan, something he said encourages people to think solely of who they feel will best do the job. More: People to Watch: Who could run for Sioux Falls' next mayor? He acknowledged that it was "a little weird" to be announcing a run for mayor without yet knowing the date of the election, following the signing of a bill in the state legislature that will see municipal elections set alongside either the June primaries or November general elections. However, he said that he'd be happy whether the Sioux Falls City Council chooses June 2 or Nov. 3 in 2026. Smith, who filed with the city to run for the position May 30, is now the second candidate in the race following David Zokaites' April announcement that he will make a third try for the office. This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Jamie Smith enters Sioux Falls mayoral race with downtown speech
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Anti-Trump fervor defining the New York City mayor's race
NEW YORK — One candidate crushed a Tesla bearing Donald Trump's name in his first TV ad of the New York City mayor's race last week. Another has accused Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams of kowtowing to the Republican president to avoid prosecution. And a third has been castigating Cuomo for sharing Trump's wealthy donors. The Democratic candidates looking to replace Adams are signaling to voters they will stand up to Trump, who looms over his hometown's mayoral election. And it's no wonder why: Polls show most Democratic voters in the nation's largest — and deep blue — city want a mayor who will fight the president as he threatens to deport migrants and slash federal funding. Their desire for a mayor to battle the White House is why Adams is opting out of the June 24 Democratic primary and instead running as an independent in November, given his friendly posture toward Trump — with whom he confabbed Friday at the White House. 'President Trump's name may not be on the ballot, but his presence is arguably the most important factor for Democratic primary candidates to navigate,' said New York City-based Democratic strategist Austin Shafran. 'Failing to show you can stand up to him could be a major disqualifier among primary voters — especially Black and brown voters who have no love lost with President Trump.' It's an especially sensitive issue for Cuomo. The scandal-scarred former governor has a decades-long relationship with the president, who even made a video appearance at Cuomo's 1990 bachelor party. Cuomo's mayoral primary foes are trying to yoke him to Trump — highlighting shared donors and similarly autocratic styles — in a bid to quash the frontrunner's momentum. They argue he's pulled punches and stayed quiet as the president conducts an unprecedented incursion into New York City's affairs. During his first 100 days, the president moved to kill a controversial Manhattan toll program, yanked migrant support funding from a city bank account and intervened to successfully dismiss Adams' federal corruption case before it went to trial. Casting Cuomo as too weak to adequately fight Trump presents a crucial opportunity to his lesser-known challengers, who are struggling to break through. The ex-governor started the race with a light touch toward Trump — calling him a fellow 'Queens boy' in a campaign trail interview — before switching to tougher rhetoric more recently. He has warned in speeches that Trump is an 'existential threat' to the city and 'a force for danger.' But Cuomo remains uneven when talking about the president: On any given day, he will bash Trump's budget and question his commitment to democracy while insisting he can work productively with him. His opponents, desperate to weaken his frontrunner standing, are pouncing. 'Whenever Donald Trump wants to put New Yorkers within his crosshairs, I am going to fight him,' state legislator Zohran Mamdani said. 'And that is in stark contrast to our former governor, who is too busy being funded by the same people that put Donald Trump in office.' At least 40 Republicans gave Cuomo a max-out donation of $2,100; Bill Ackman, a hedge fund titan who's thrown his support behind Trump, donated $250,000 to a super PAC backing Cuomo. A moderate who's tangled with those on his left flank over mass transit, the minimum wage and taxes, Cuomo has long faced criticism over his loyalty to the Democratic Party. During his decade-long tenure in Albany, Cuomo propped up Republican control of the state Senate by tacitly blessing a power-sharing deal with centrist Democrats — an arrangement that dissolved after Trump's election made it politically toxic. Two of Cuomo's lesser-known mayoral opponents — state Sens. Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos — came into office by unseating members of that breakaway faction. Cuomo resigned in 2021 after a state attorney general investigation found he sexually harassed 11 women — charges he denies. Unlike his opponents, Cuomo can credibly claim that he has known Trump, worked with Trump and fought against Trump. His supporters view him as the perfect Trump foil — a bully, but our bully, an alpha to match the president's own take-no-prisoners personality. 'I know Mr. Trump,' Cuomo said in an April speech at a Harlem church. 'He is a bully. And you know what you do with a bully? You stand up to a bully. When they put their finger in your chest, you step forward, you don't step back.' But Cuomo's comments have been inconsistent. In his unusually long March 1 launch video, Cuomo didn't mention Trump until the 13th minute, and the message was one of cautious collaboration. Compare that to city Comptroller Brad Lander, who is staking his campaign on attacking Cuomo and Trump — often together. Lander, who is trailing in the polls, recently dropped more than $700,000 on a TV ad showing him in a junkyard crushing a Tesla — and declaring Cuomo corrupt in the process. 'Andrew Cuomo only cares about Andrew Cuomo,' Lander said in an interview. 'He imagines Trump and he in some kind of finger-poking battle, but that's not the battle that's being fought.' Lander invoked Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a New Jersey gubernatorial candidate who was arrested Friday protesting at an ICE detention center. Several New York City mayoral candidates, including Lander — but not Cuomo — went to Newark to rally for his release over the weekend or released statements in support. 'Students are on the line. Due process is on the line. Our budget's on the line,' Lander added in the interview. 'And (Cuomo) hasn't said one word about any of those things. So this idea that anyone should care about his hypothetical idea about what he would do when he can't be found to say anything about the battles that New Yorkers are fighting right now is very telling.' Cuomo is sympathetic to Trump on at least one — very controversial — argument: His insistence the justice system has been 'weaponized' to go after politicians. Cuomo has groused the state-level sexual harassment probe that ended his gubernatorial career lacked 'due process' — though he was allowed to provide testimony to the attorney general's investigators, who substantiated the sexual harassment and misconduct claims that aides leveled against him. The Albany County district attorney subsequently dismissed a forcible touching charge against him, citing insufficient evidence. The former governor has repeatedly embraced claims that he, Trump, Hunter Biden and Adams were all subjected to a legal system built on political retribution. Trump's version of that claim underpinned his entire 2024 presidential election, as he campaigned while battling several indictments and was convicted on 34 felony counts. 'You have the Department of Justice or a U.S. attorney or a district attorney actually getting involved and starting investigations, many of which could be seen as politically motivated,' Cuomo told Teamsters President Sean O'Brien during a recent podcast interview. But he's made a point of distancing himself from Trump, recently rallying against the president's proposed federal budget and linking the coming spending fight to his previous battles with Trump over Covid. Cuomo may find himself at odds with Trump — or at least the president's Republican allies in Congress — if he wins the mayoralty. House Republicans have called for Cuomo to be prosecuted after he was accused of lying to Congress during his testimony to a committee investigating his Covid response. Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing and decried the Covid probe as politically motivated. Myrie has questioned whether the GOP's criminal referral means Cuomo is 'compromised' and would do Trump's bidding to avoid prosecution — a scenario reminiscent of Adams' behavior surrounding his corruption case. 'After two months pulling punches on Trump, New Yorkers are right to be concerned about whether the former governor is tiptoeing around Trump to avoid his DOJ,' Myrie said. The Cuomo campaign has called the theory 'desperate and frankly silly.' Albany Democrats fear Cuomo will try to re-exert control over the Capitol he ruled for a decade despite the mayor's office having far less power than his old job. In that, they see echoes between Trump's power grabs and the ex-governor's penchant for control. 'Andrew Cuomo is sort of like the Donald Trump of the Democratic Party,' said Democratic state Assemblymember Phil Steck. 'He's going to use the tremendous power of the mayor of the city to disrupt state government. I don't think he's going to be able to stop that aspect of his personality.' Meanwhile his rivals are looking for openings to run against Trump, as the primary enters its final six-week stretch. Lander has held weekly anti-Trump press conferences and two town halls, attracting hundreds of voters. He filmed a digital ad of himself literally throwing punches at his boxing gym, likening it to fighting Elon Musk's move to seize city funds. Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker and a late entry into the mayoral race, says she's already fighting Trump in her leadership role. She fundraised off her lawsuit to block the mayor's deal to bring federal law enforcement agents back to city jails, calling it 'the Trump administration's attempt to seize power over our city at the expense of New Yorkers.' Most candidates have released plans for the city's potential financial losses. Myrie raised the idea of withholding city tax payments from the federal government and hiring a new crop of lawyers to specifically respond to Trump's legal threats. Mamdani, a democratic socialist assemblymember running second in the polls, has focused more on affordability than on opposition to Trump. In fact, he went viral in November for a video engaging with Trump voters in the Bronx and Queens. But in his latest TV ad, a narrator says Mamdani 'stood up to Donald Trump' over footage of him protesting outside a Tesla showroom. And a video of Mamdani screaming at Trump border czar Tom Homan over the detention of pro-Palestinian activists spread across the internet. The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But Trump has shared some thoughts about the mayor's race. 'I've always gotten along with him,' the president said of Cuomo in April. Sure, Cuomo wasn't grateful for the Trump administration setting up emergency Covid hospitals in New York City, he noted, but added, 'we always had a pretty good relationship.' Cuomo brushed it off. 'He complained. So it's not really a good relationship if he complains, right?' he said. It was just the latest round for the man who paraphrased Mike Tyson when ridiculing what he considers his foes' deficient toughness against Trump. 'I love these people who say 'I can handle Donald Trump.' Yeah,' Cuomo scoffed about his opponents at a recent forum hosted by the Brooklyn Democratic Party. 'There's an old boxing expression where the person who's about to get in the ring says, 'I have a plan. I have a plan.' Yeah, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.'
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
With filing week over, election season in Spokane County asks if voters want to shake up their cities
May 9—Medical Lake residents will be asked whether to re-elect a mayor determined to see the city grow and further developed, or a former mayor worried growth is outpacing the city's capacity to pay for it and could start to price out current residents. Mayor Terri Cooper is running for her second term, touting the work her office has done to secure grants and other state support she believes has put the city on a path to revitalization. She highlighted the recent acquisition of Medical Lake Waterfront Park, for example, which the city had leased from the state for decades under terms set to become more expensive but that will now be transferred to the city outright in 2026 under an agreement secured with support from the state legislature. "I had a vision of creating Medical Lake as an outdoor recreation resort town that people would enjoy coming to enjoy the lakes and trails and beauty of our region," Cooper said in a brief interview Friday. "The city had basically been in a state of deterioration for many years." Cooper said she's proud of the work her staff and she have done to update local infrastructure and the city's economic development plan, and boost local festivals and park events, so she's seeking another four years to build on the foundation she feels she's laid in the first four. Cooper also came to regional prominence for her leadership in the face of a devastating fire in 2023 that destroyed dozens of homes in her city. A personal friend of former Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Cooper made a bid last year for that seat but dropped out before filing week. Her opponent this November will be John Higgins, who served as mayor for 12 years but declined to run for re-election in 2013. He also more recently served as a member of the Medical Lake School Board and worked as a local softball coach for decades before entering politics. Higgins praised Cooper's office's deftness in securing grants, but expressed concerns that the city didn't have the sales tax base necessary to sustain continued growth in the long term. He pointed to a pending 101-lot development and argued Medical Lake would have to expand its reliance on relatively costly water drawn from the city of Spokane, as well as the potential increase in area property values that would coincide. "It's pretty much a retirement community in Medical Lake; there's not a lot of young folks coming in, except the military," Higgins said. "I don't want to see folks pushed out of their homes. And when all this government money, like Biden's infrastructure stuff, when all that money's gone, there's not going to be much money left out there to keep up with all the people moving into Medical Lake." Higgins touted that the city had balanced its budget for 12 years under his leadership without raising local utility taxes, which he noted was one of the few levers the city had to increase local revenue. Last-minute additions in Spokane, Spokane Valley A few last-minute candidates for local races in Spokane and Spokane Valley mean real primary contests for more races. Races with only two candidates still appear on the August primary ballots, but only in races with three or more candidates is anyone eliminated before the November general. Justin Reed, co-owner of family business Great American Construction and freelance sports reporter for The Spokesman-Review, filed Friday to run for the Spokane City Council seat representing northeast Spokane against incumbent Jonathan Bingle and social justice advocate Sarah Dixit. The northwest Spokane council seat also has three candidates: incumbent Councilman Zack Zappone, private cigar lounge co-owner Cody Arguelles and Meals on Wheels board member Christopher Savage. In the final Spokane City Council seat up for election this year, Alejandro Barrientos, chief operating officer at SCAFCO Steel Stud Company, and Kate Telis, a former deputy prosecutor in New Mexico, are both seeking a seat being vacated by Councilwoman Lili Navarette, who was appointed to the seat in early 2024 and announced earlier this year she would not seek a new term. Three more candidates for Spokane Valley City Council also filed in the past two days, making that city's elections the most competitive in the county this year. Councilman Rod Higgins, the longest continuous serving member of the council, is not running for re-election this year. Four people have filed to try to claim his seat, including Kristopher Pockell, a software engineer and co-owner of Elixir Sauce Company; Mike Kelly, an entrepreneur who serves as chief financial officer for Salem-based KT Contracting; and Lisa Miller, a member of the Spokane County Board of Equalization. Finally, Adam Smith, owner of Smash Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, filed Friday as the fourth and final candidate vying for the seat. Smith ran unsuccessfully for the Spokane Valley City Council in 2019, 2021 and 2023. Councilwoman Laura Padden has picked up two opponents this week, including Brad Hohn, manager of the salvage yard High Mountain Horsepower. Joseph Ghodsee, a member of the city's Homeless and Housing Task Force and Gonzaga University student named Friday to the school's President's List, also filed for the position Friday. Spokane Valley Mayor Pam Haley received an opponent for her council seat Thursday in Realtor Catherine Nelson. Spokane Valley does not have a separate election for mayor, but rather the City Council appoints a mayor from among its members. Councilman Ben Wick, a councilmember from 2012 to 2015 before rejoining the council in 2017, has drawn a challenge from Daryl Williams, an employee of Fairmount Memorial Park who goes by "The Karaoke Guy" while operating his local karaoke pop-up business. The county's largest school district finally picked up a challenger Friday as well. All four Spokane Public Schools board members in seats up for re-election, Nikki Otero Lockwood, Hilary Kozel, Nicole Bishop and Jenny Slagle, have filed to retain their seats. Jessica Anundson, owner of Eye to Eye Advising, filed Friday to run against Kozel. A second Spokane municipal court position will also be contested. Judges Kristin O'Sullivan, Mary Logan and Gloria Ochoa-Bruck each filed for re-election Monday. As of Wednesday evening, Logan was the only to draw a challenge — from former Spokane City Attorney Lynden Smithson. On Friday, criminal defense attorney Sarah Freedman filed to run against Ochoa-Bruck.
