Tamara Sawyer
Tamara Sawyer ran for election for Mayor of Memphis in Tennessee. She lost in the general election on October 3, 2019.
2019 battleground election
This section is adopted from Mayoral election in Memphis, Tennessee (2019). To learn more, click here.
Incumbent Jim Strickland defeated former Mayor Willie Herenton, County Commissioner Tamara Sawyer, and nine other candidates for a four-year term as mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, in a nonpartisan election on October 3, 2019. Strickland received 62% of the vote to Herenton's 29% and Sawyer's 7%.
Strickland, who unseated incumbent A.C. Wharton in 2015, said that he was running to continue his first-term policies. Strickland said that he expanded the city's police force and school system while maintaining a balanced budget, avoiding tax increases, and reducing unemployment.[1]
Herenton was elected as Memphis' mayor in 1991 and served until resigning during his fifth term in 2009. He said that he was running because his plan to combat poverty had fallen off track after he left office.[2] He said he would use his past experience as mayor to prioritize reducing poverty.[3][4]
Sawyer first won her seat on the county commission in 2018. She said that her earlier political experience, including as a leader of a movement calling for the removal of statues of figures associated with the Confederacy, demonstrated her experience in making policy.[5] Sawyer said that she would put less emphasis on business and more on what she described as long-term challenges for the city, including spending on public transportation and the electrical grid.[6][7]
Although the election was officially nonpartisan, Herenton, Sawyer, and Strickland were, as of 2019, all members of the Democratic Party.[8][9][10] As of October 2019, 62 of the nation's 100 largest cities had Democratic mayors and 30 had Republican mayors.
Memphis mayoral elections did not allow for runoffs.
Also on the ballot were Leo AwGoWhat, Michael Banks, Terrence Boyce, Steven Bradley, Robert Hodges, DeAngelo Pegues, David Walker, Sharon A. Webb, and Lemichael Wilson.
Elections
2019
See also: Mayoral election in Memphis, Tennessee (2019)
General election
General election for Mayor of Memphis
The following candidates ran in the general election for Mayor of Memphis on October 3, 2019.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jim Strickland (Nonpartisan) | 62.1 | 59,904 |
 | Willie Herenton (Nonpartisan) | 28.7 | 27,702 | |
 | Tamara Sawyer (Nonpartisan) | 6.9 | 6,669 | |
| Robert Hodges (Nonpartisan) | 0.5 | 471 | ||
| Sharon A. Webb (Nonpartisan) | 0.5 | 445 | ||
 | Lemichael Wilson (Nonpartisan) | 0.3 | 305 | |
 | Steven Bradley (Nonpartisan) | 0.2 | 232 | |
| Terrence Boyce (Nonpartisan) | 0.2 | 228 | ||
| David Walker (Nonpartisan) | 0.2 | 224 | ||
| Leo AwGoWhat (Nonpartisan) | 0.1 | 77 | ||
| DeAngelo Pegues (Nonpartisan) | 0.1 | 64 | ||
 | Pamela Moses (Nonpartisan) (Write-in) | 0.0 | 0 | |
| Michael Banks (Nonpartisan) | 0.0 | 0 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.1 | 134 | ||
| Total votes: 96,455 (100.00% precincts reporting) | |||
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Candidate profile
Party: Nonpartisan
Incumbent: No
Political office: Shelby County Board of Commissioners (2018-Present)
Biography: Sawyer obtained her bachelor's degree from the University of Memphis. She went on to work for seven years as a human capital analyst with the U.S. Navy's Integrated Warfare Systems Program Executive Office before joining Teach for America-Memphis as a managing director of diversity and community partnerships.[11] In 2017, Sawyer founded #takeemdown901, a movement advocating for the removal of statues depicting figures associated with the Confederate States of America in Memphis.[12]
- Sawyer said that in recent years Memphis' government "has had a conservative and business-first focus, which has translated to less services to support residents and neighborhoods" and that she would expand job-training programs, incentivize wage increases, and increase access to affordable housing if elected.[6]
- Sawyer was critical of what she described as city leaders' inaction on long-term challenges facing Memphis, including what she called an inefficient public transportation system, low-quality power lines and water pipes, an uneven focus on development in certain neighborhoods at the expense of others, and a lawsuit with the state of Mississippi over aquifer access.[7]
- Sawyer said that she had experience with local politics, referring to her founding of #takeemdown901 and her election to the county commission in 2018.[5]
Campaign finance
The following chart contains campaign finance figures taken from disclosures filed with the Shelby County Election Commission and covering all raising and spending between January 16, 2019, and September 23, 2019. Only candidates who filed pre-general election financial disclosures and reported raising or spending money are included. View the full reporting schedule for mayoral candidates here.
In addition to the figures reported above, Strickland reported entering 2019 with $757,497.96 already in his campaign finance account.
Campaign themes
2019
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Tamara Sawyer did not complete Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign ads
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See also
2019 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedstrickland1 - ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedherenton1 - ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedherenton2 - ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedherenton3 - ↑ 5.0 5.1 Tami Sawyer for Mayor, "About Tami," accessed August 7, 2019
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Tami Sawyer for Mayor, "Economic Equity," accessed August 7, 2019
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Tami Sawyer for Mayor, "Moving Memphis Forward," accessed August 7, 2019
- ↑ Memphis Daily News, "Strickland In Mayor's Race, Wharton Responds," January 15, 2015
- ↑ Politico, "Herenton: 'We just want one'," February 8, 2010
- ↑ WREG, "Local activist wins Democratic nomination: ‘This is the work of our community’," May 2, 2018
- ↑ Shelby County, Tennessee, "Commissioner Tami Sawyer," accessed August 6, 2019
- ↑ Tami Sawyer for Mayor, "About Tami," accessed August 6, 2019
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