(C) Tennessee Lookout
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Analysis: O'Connell, Rolli's victory mirror 2015 Barry, Fox Nashville mayoral election map – Tennessee Lookout [1]
['Adam Friedman', 'More From Author', '- August']
Date: 2023-08-11
Freddie O’Connell rode a wave of East Nashville, Salemtown and Hillsboro Village voters to first place in the first round of last week’s Nashville mayoral election.
But overall, O’Connell performed highly in several parts of Nashville, drawing 200 or more votes in 52 of Nashville’s 179 precincts, according to results from the Davidson County Election Commission.
While precinct sizes vary across the city, O’Connell’s ability to draw voters from a broad swath of neighborhoods — including places like Bellevue and Brentwood — was one of the reasons he outperformed former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s performance in her 2015 pre-runoff election.
When compared side by side, O’Connell won in many of the same places as Barry, hinting that he potentially replicated her coalition of voters and expanded on it.
(The maps below are sliders. Press middle dot to swipe across and compare the two maps presented)
The 2015 and 2023 elections have parallels, with both featuring five prominent candidates — four perceived Democrats and one Republican — and a similar turnout of just above 100,000 voters.
Nashville’s mayoral election is technically nonpartisan, but O’Connell, Matt Wiltshire and state Sens. Jeff Yarbro and Heidi Campbell were considered the Democrats in this year’s race, while Alice Rolli was the Republican.
In 2015, Barry, Bill Freeman, Charles Robert Bone and Howard Gentry were the Democrats, and David Fox the Republican.
Rolli’s 2023 campaign pulled in 200 or more votes in 37 precincts, while Fox’s surpassed that threshold in 41 precincts.
Davidson County expanded from 161 to 179 precincts between the two elections, slightly adjusting the maps.
But, a side-by-side comparison shows Rolli and Fox pulled a large chunk of their votes from same edges of Davidson County in places like Bellevue, Belle Meade and Cane Ridge.
Rolli’s largest voting sections also mirror conservative Carol Swain’s third-place finish in the 2019 mayoral election.
The 2019 election differs from the other two because it included only three Democrats; Nashville Mayor John Cooper, former Mayor David Briley and state Rep. John Ray Clemmons.
A smaller field in that election allowed Briley and Cooper to both reach the runoff, where Cooper won.
Nashville’s Democratic leanings allowed Barry in 2015 to consolidate the left-leaning vote, garnering 60,519 votes to Fox’s 49,694. Cooper grabbed a similar number of total votes as Barry, snagging 62,204 in his 2019 victory.
If O’Connell is able to consolidate all other four prominent 2023 Democratic candidate votes in the runoff, he could end up with close to 65,000 votes on Sept. 14’s runoff election.
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[1] Url:
https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/08/11/analysis-oconnell-rollis-victory-mirror-2015-barry-fox-nashville-mayoral-election-map/
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