Voters in St. Louis’ 8th ward go to the polls today to elect an alderman to fill Mayor Cara Spencer’s old seat, representing a large swath of the city that hugs the river from Carondelet to downtown. The race doesn’t just pit five candidates against each other, but also Spencer against Aldermanic President Megan Green.
Spencer and many of her political allies have endorsed Jami Cox Antwi, while Green is backing Shedrick “Nato Caliph” Kelley. Right now, Antwi is running away in the fundraising context. But given that this summer special election will almost certainly be an ultra-low turnout affair, it’s still basically a jump ball.
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Campaign financials made public last week show Antwi, who works for U.S. Bank’s community development arm, outraised the field by wide margin, bringing in around $50,000 this cycle. Kelley, Benton Park businesswoman Alecia Hoyt, and retired Soulard actuary Jim Dallas have brought in around $10,000 each. The fifth candidate in the race, libertarian Cam McCarty has brought in around $1300.
However, Green’s political action committee, Progress PAC, has dropped more than $20,000 on Kelley, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission.
“It’s a race that both of them are rightly paying attention to,” a City Hall insider says of Spencer and Green’s involvement in the race. “The person who wins could be a swing vote on a lot of things.”
Among Spencer’s allies backing Antwi is Dan Guenther, who is Spencer’s liaison to the Board of Aldermen as well as, more importantly for this election, a former alderman for Benton Park.
“I think it’s going to be low turnout, so every camp is pushing their ‘vote every time’ people,” he says. “It’s hard to tell.”
After four weeks of early voting, only 265 ballots had been cast. That’s about 2 percent turnout or, “roughly the attendance at a big block party,” quips one close observer of the race.
Multiple political insiders tell SLM that the winner could be someone with as few as 600 votes. The number of entrants in the special election is a marked contrast to the aldermanic elections earlier this year, when three candidates ran unopposed.
Guenther describes Dallas as something of a dark horse in the race, as he has support from former Alderman Ken Ortmann and a big following in Soulard. Houses that used to have Ortmann signs now have them for Dallas.
Hoyt told SLM that yesterday morning she took a few hours off to catch a movie with her daughter, a short break after break after a hectic campaign. “I feel pretty optimistic,” she said.
That optimism was fueled in part because her main issue has been traffic calming and getting people to drive more safely in residential streets. Regardless of today’s outcome, “We have moved the needle so all these candidates are on record,” she says.
The race has been notable for the confusion created by Proposition D, the 2020 ballot initiative that made most elections in the city nonpartisan. But not special elections. In special elections like this one, party committees get to nominate their candidates. In May, the city’s Democratic central party committee nominated Kelley.
Despite that, the city Board of Elections determined his party affiliation will not appear on the ballot. The central committee sued to have Kelley designated as the Democratic candidate on the ballot, but a judge shot that effort down. A subsequent effort to have Kelley’s name moved to the top of the ballot was shot down as well.
Though the utility of the party’s endorsement is tempered by the way the ballot will be laid out, observers of this race say that being the official Democratic candidate will offer a significant boost for Kelley in the deep blue city.
“Kelley seems to have the most useful endorsements,” said one observer. “Antwi has the most generous donors.”
